Concealment devices or diversion safes are used to hide things for the purpose of secrecy or security. They are made from an ordinary household object such as a book, a soda can, a candle, a can, or something as small as a coin. The idea is that such an inconspicuous object would not be expected to contain anything of worth.
Examples in espionage include dead drop spikes for transferring items to other people, and hollowed-out coins or teeth for concealing suicide pills. Examples in smuggling include suitcases with false bottoms for hiding contraband.
During World War II MI9 was responsible for creating many concealment devices for "escape aids" to assist prisoners of war to escape.
Famous quotes containing the word device:
“The man who pretends that the distribution of income in this country reflects the distribution of ability or character is an ignoramus. The man who says that it could by any possible political device be made to do so is an unpractical visionary. But the man who says that it ought to do so is something worse than an ignoramous and more disastrous than a visionary: he is, in the profoundest Scriptural sense of the word, a fool.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)