Spies coolest gadgets and deadliest secrets revealed

And you thought those James Bond gadgets were only in movies.

The real tools of a spy’s trade are just as incredible: cameras built into bras, deadly umbrellas, razor sharp knives hidden in shoe heels (designed for cutting ropes if your hands are bound) and cigarettes that turn into guns.

While the most up-to-date tech remains classified for obvious reasons, thousands of items that once had top-secret status now reside in the hands of collectors. And they have been known to deploy similar cloak-and-dagger to those they admire to get hold of the goods.

Three collectors, all affiliated with the International Spy Museum in Washington DC, came clean to The Post about their goodies and the edgy purposes they once served.

KGB, CIA and Mossad

H. Keith Melton first got exposed to spy gear while serving as a US Naval officer in Vietnam. In the mid 70s he made a public call for tools of the spook trade to kickstart his collection.

“I ran ads all over the world,” Melton told The Post. “Nobody knew what this stuff was. So, I advertised for secret spy gear from the KGB, CIA and Mossad.”

Gear rolled in and so did the connections. In short order, Melton, who had a stint as a casino card counter and a career as a McDonald’s franchisee, was traveling the world for surreptitious meet ups that resulted in procuring thousands of items once used to steal and conceal secrets and pressure counterparts to spill. 

He now has some 8,600 items — most of which are in the Spy Museum, comprising much of the collection — including a hat that held a gun, shoes surreptitiously implanted with eavesdropping devices, and an assassination needle concealed within a silver dollar. 

 “The needle acted as a sheath and inside it was the world’s tiniest drill bit,” explained Melton who has authored or co-authored books such as “The Ultimate Spy.”  

“Poison was in the grooves. You could use it to kill yourself or to kill somebody else.”

Russian devices in Melton’s collection – including a tube of lipstick that turns into a gun – often came directly from former KGB officers. 

Getting such stuff out of Russia sometimes required subterfuge on Melton’s part. In one instance, he smuggled out a hollow coin (which would be used to hide microfilm) in his mouth.

Another item he owns is a replica of a ‘Bulgarian Umbrella’, which looks like an everyday object, but had a tip loaded with a fire-able Ricin poison pellet. Its name comes from the device used to kill Bulgarian journalist and dissident Georgi Markov in 1978.

From the US side of his collection: a glove that doubled as a pistol. Those were for code breakers in the American military’s cipher room, situated close to the front lines during World War II.

“The question there was, ‘What if the Germans come in and overwhelm us?’’’ explained Melton. “Someone had the idea, ‘Well, let’s have all the employees in the cypher room wear gloves with a .38 caliber firing device.’  They were designed so that if you made a fist, a rod would protrude by a half-inch; then, if you hit somebody, the gun would go off.”

Considering that golden age of espionage gadgets – between World War II and 1988, when computer hacking largely took over – Melton drily asked, “What could be handier than for everybody in an office to be walking around with a loaded .38 caliber weapon?”  

Secret cameras

Michael Hasco is a sales executive for Nestle turned spy camera buff. He was lucky enough to score a lot of his collection after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

 “I traveled to Germany. Things were very loose. If you had American cash, everything was up for grabs. I developed a network of former police officers, former intelligence officers,”
Hasco, author of “The Secret History of STASI Spy Cameras,” told The Post.

He has all manner of everyday objects disguised as cameras, even one which looks like a normal camera, but actually photographs from a hidden lens on the side – 90 degrees from where the camera is pointed, perfect for appearing to film the permissible while capturing the verboten.

Another favorite score? “The lipstick camera,” Hasco said, explaining that it would be used in at least two scenarios. “A female agent would be issued a tube of lipstick and inside was a tiny camera. In a restaurant, the woman would put on lipstick and take pictures of people at their tables. It was completely functional,” for both, applying cosmetics and taking snapshots. 

Then there were special tiny cameras small enough to be placed in an unnoticeable hole in a wall, to capture targets lured into having sex with prostitutes or patriotic Soviet film actresses. Potentially getting even closer to the subject, there is even a camera built into a bra.

“A German woman came up with the bra concept and was awarded 600 deutschmarks [about $3,000 today, accounting for inflation from 1970],” said Hasco. “She said that men won’t look directly at her breasts so she put it [on the material between the cups]. I have one with the camera painted a flesh color. She could wear a sheer blouse and take photos through it.”

The cigarette gambit was another Cold War favorite: Photos were shot through pinholes in a cigarette pack that not only contained a camera but also held a cigarette or two that could be tapped out from the pack and lit by the picture popping agent.

A block of 18 fake cigarette tips sticking up – along with the fact that the brand was Golden American, the Marlboro of Germany in the 1980s – imparted believability. “You sit down, light up and take photos while you are smoking,” said Hasco. “It was totally innocuous, and nobody noticed a thing.”

Concealed carry

Reade Williams began collecting out of curiosity. Growing up in the 1960s, when spy serials like “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” were the rage. He told The Post, “I wondered what was real and what was fanciful.”

In the 1970s, he got chance to find out. “Things from Vietnam popped up [in electronics surplus catalogues],” recalled Williams, who works as an attorney near Washington DC. “There were seismic sensors [which were radio beacons sensing footsteps of enemies]. They were disguised as twigs, rocks and excrement. They called them Dog Doo Transmitters.”

One item that straddles fiction and reality is the briefcase with a built-in gun. “The US model held a nine-millimeter submachine gun that shot out the side. There’s a Russian one with a firing device near the handle. You hit the button, the briefcase falls away and you’re left holding the submachine pistol.”

Among the more ingenious items that Williams owns is what he calls a “spike weapon.”

He described it as resembling a knitting needle with a wire attached and a ball on the other end.

“You come up to your target, preferably from behind, and loop the wire around their neck,” he explained. “The spike is hollow. It would be filled with botulism toxin and covered with beeswax. You drive the spike into the person’s neck or shoulder, body temperature melts the wax,” and the toxin gets released.

How does one snag something like this? “I obtained it from a pretty advanced military knife collector” The cost: “hundreds, if not thousands [of dollars].”

Maybe the most practical spy piece might be his film destruction case. “It’s a soap dish,” said Williams. “The film is wrapped around a bulb.  If opened, the bulb flashed and the film was exposed. The agent was compromised but the film was destroyed.”

The idea behind spy-gear collecting is to preserve a part of the past typically withheld from public view.

“It provides a great appreciation for the risks taken and accomplishments achieved by intelligence officers,” said Williams. “It allows us to see a part of history that does not appear in history books.”