Portland Spy Ring - The Arrests

The Arrests

On Saturday 7 January 1961, Houghton, Gee and Lonsdale were meeting in London when they were arrested by Special Branch detective Detective Superintendent George Gordon Smith — as MI5 officers are not authorised to make arrests. Gee's shopping bag contained huge amounts of film and photographs of classified material, including details of HMS Dreadnought, Britain's first nuclear submarine, and the stalling speed specifications of the Borg Warner torque converter.

Smith and two colleagues then went to Ruislip to see the Krogers. Claiming to be investigating some local burglaries they gained entry to the house. Once inside they identified themselves as Special Branch officers and said that the Krogers had to accompany them to Scotland Yard for questioning. Before leaving Mrs Kroger asked to be allowed to stoke up the boiler. Before she could, Smith insisted on checking her handbag first. It was found to contain microdots, the photographic reduction of documents in order to make them small enough to be smuggled more easily. Smith, a veteran spy catcher, had guessed her intention to destroy these microdots.

The microdots found at the Krogers' home were letters sent between Lonsdale and his wife, who lived in the USSR with their children. These included things like money matters and how the children were doing at school. Kroger had used the print in his antique books to hold the microdots and smuggle them between Britain and Russia. These would have included the secrets passed on by Houghton and Gee.

The Kroger house was full of spying equipment, including large sums of money, photographic material, code pads for coding messages and a long-range radio transmitter-receiver for communicating with Moscow. It took several days to unearth all the equipment, and other items including fake passports were not found until after the police had left. The MI5 intelligence officer Peter Wright has stated that the Krogers' radio transmitter was only located after nine days of searching. Large amounts of money were also found in the homes of Houghton, Gee and Lonsdale.