Artifacts Collection

Tradecraft Artifacts

Concealment devices

Toy truck

This homemade toy truck was brought into Canada by the young son of a foreign intelligence operative sent to Canada for the purpose of carrying out espionage tasks. The operative and family entered Canada from Eastern Europe in the early 1960s. As can be seen, the "toy truck" was a cleverly crafted concealment device for espionage paraphernalia. It contained a microdot reader, a special lens and a miniature code book called a One-Time-Pad containing a series of five digit numbers. Codes would be utilized once and then discarded, hence the name.

This toy truck with concealed lens, microdot reader and One-Time Pad was brought in to Canada by a foreign agent to carry out espionage activities.

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