The World's Greatest Spy Capers

Perpetrator: U.S.S.R.
Target: U.S.A.

On June 22, 1953, a Brooklyn Eagle delivery boy named Jimmy was making the rounds in Brooklyn to collect payments for his newspaper when he was handed a suspiciously lightweight coin. When he accidentally dropped it on the floor outside, it broke, revealing a microfilm of a series of numbers. He passed it on to a friend, who gave it to a cop, who then gave it to the FBI. But since the woman who had handed him the coin was equally surprised by the finding (she was an unwitting conduit), it wasn't until four years later that authorities got any closer to solving the mystery. As it turns out, the delivery boy had stumbled upon an extensive communication network used by the KGB in the United States, consisting of hollowed-out coins, pens, brushes, bolts, and various other tiny vessels. Only when a KGB officer defected to the U.S. Embassy in Paris in 1957 did Americans begin to crack the code and make arrests.