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Concealment device
During the Cold War, the travel kit shown here was a popular
concealment device
for smuggling secret documents into a country.
It was used by Eastern Block countries, like the
USSR (Russia) and the DDR
(East-Germany) to hide fake passports and
One-Time Pads (OTPs) when travelling.
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During the 1960s, the personal care kit
shown here was a very popular accessory for business people travelling
around the globe. It is a rather large
leather 'wallet'
that roughly measures 28 x 17 x 5 cm and contains
a razor, toothbrush, nail cutter, shaving mirrow, tooth picks, cloth brush, comb, etc. Basically, everything you would need for personal maintenance
when on the move.
What makes this kit special, is that it contains a secret compartment,
also known as a stash or concealment container,
invisible to the naked eye and also
to the X-ray equipment at customs.
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After inserting a pin into a tiny little hole at a specific location
and pushing it down, a secret lock is disengaged and a trap door is
opened.
In this case, the diagonal brown leather bar
at the bottom right is the trap door and the pin has to be inserted
into a tiny little hole to the right of the file.
After pushing the pin down, the brown leather bar can be
shifted to the left,
after which the trapdoor can be removed.
This reveals a narrow opening that resembles a letter box.
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Inside the container is an orange 'bag' with
a rope at the end, that allows it to be easily removed from the container.
The bag is large enough
to hold one or two passports, money,
secret documents and several OTP booklets.
The travel kit shown here is from the internal collection of the
Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD)
and was found in the mid-1960s on a Dutch man who actually was
an East-German agent and who regularly travelled between The Netherlands
and the DDR. He used it to carry a passport and a small OTP booklet.
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The extra passport was needed as he was travelling under a false identity in
order to avoid East-European stamps in his real passport. The OTP booklet
was for decoding encrypted messages that were sent to him via the
Numbers Stations on the short wave radio bands
and also to send messages via his
Russian R-353 spy radio set
that was hidden in his home in The Netherlands.
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The diagram below gives an overview of the various items inside the kit.
Kits like these were very common during the 1950s and 1960s and are even used
today by some vintage enthusiasts. The kit consists of a leather wallet
with a zipper that can be opened like a book. It contains the usual items
for washing, shaving, polishing the shoes, brushing the teeth
and manicuring the nails.
Invisible to the naked eye is a concealment compartment that is hidden in
the right half of the kit. It can be accessed through a trap door that is
hidden behind the diagonal brown leather bar at the bottom right.
The user has to insert a pin
at a specific place and
pull the bar sideways to the left,
in order to removed the trap door. To avoid detection
of the compartment during an X-ray at customs, a metal plate is embedded
behind the grey lining of the right half.
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- AIVD, One-Time Pad and OTP concealment
Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service. October 2010.
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Sunday 30 August 2015. Last changed: Tuesday, 13 June 2017 - 10:53 CET.
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![Traval kit concealment courtesy AIVD Netherlands [1]](img/302200/003/full.jpg)
![Courtesy AIVD Netherlands [1]](img/302200/014/full.jpg)
![Courtesy AIVD Netherlands [1]](img/302200/019/full.jpg)
