Coverts covet spy supplies

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 25, 1995 | by Doug Abrahms

Espionage isn't simply for governments any more. Businesses, families and a growing number of amateur gumshoes are joining the game.

Neckties hiding miniature cameras no longer are the sole province of James Bond. Secret Santas have a new store to browse in: the Counter Spy Shop of Mayfair, London, with outlets in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, which offers an array of low-and high-tech toys.

The store sells bulletproof vests, books with hollow centers, shaving-cream cans with false bottoms, pens that spray pepper gas and an ordinary-looking outdoor thermometer with a place to hide spare keys, along with cellular-phone scrambling devices and tape recorders that can pick up whispers. A pager-sized bug detector vibrates to alert the wearer of eavesdroppers.

With industrial espionage on the rise, spy merchandise is hot, says Bill Kelly, manager of the Washington store, which opened in October just blocks from the White House. The chain maintains its other stores on Madison Avenue and Rodeo Drive, the better to attract embassy, corporate and wealthy clients.

Even though the price of spy merchandise has fallen within reach of consumers, the business is driven by companies' efforts to guard against employee theft of property and confidential information. Insurance companies and even a federal workers' compensation office have bought voicestress analyzers to monitor people filing claims. A Texas cattle baron flew to Washington to buy night-vision goggles to stop rustlers back home, says Keny

And, of course, there is diplomatic spying - as in the case of to U.S. government bugging business-class seats on Air France, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Grave concern over terrorism also keeps business brisk. Counter Spy has a three-month waiting list for bomb-detection equipment, Kelly says, the aftershock of the bombings of the World Trade Center and the federal building in Oklahoma City.

But parents and homeowners are shopping for espionage equipment, too. "It's not just industrial espionage anymore," says Marcia Pearl, a spokeswoman for Counter Spy. "People have to protect themselves from crime. People have to take responsibility for their own safety." Miniature video cameras are big sellers. "A lot of people are very nervous about the baby sitter," says Pearl. "I think people want to know if [baby-sitters] have men over when they're gone."

Counter Spy does not sell bugs or wiretapping equipment, Kelly says. (Hiding a camera on one's own premises is legal, but "once you put a microphone in, then you've got a [bugging] problem," notes Kelly.) Television newspeople have bought his miniature cameras to tape in places where cameras were barred.

Several stores with similar names have popped up in the Washington area over the past 15 years, including one that U.S. customs investigators used to monitor foreign agents. Ben Jamil, operator of Counter Spy shops in the mid-1980s, allowed U.S. agents to wire his stores to gather information about the illegal export of espionage equipment and monitor foreign agents, according to newspaper reports. Espionage shops made headlines this year when the Justice Department charged that some owners were selling illegal bugging equipment. More than a dozen were arrested.