Poison-pellet weapons

Image from "The Ultimate Spy Book" by H.Keith Melton. © 1996 DK Publishing. Used by permission.

Designed by the KGB, the poison-pellet umbrella was used in the assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London. A jab with an umbrella at a bus stop -- easily dismissed as a meaningless accident -- delivered a pellet of ricin, a poison derived from castor-oil seeds. Markov was dead soon after.

Ricin is an extremely toxic poison; Scotland Yard estimated that only 425 micrograms of the poison killed Markov. It is also extremely difficult to detect in the bloodstream. Markov's assassination was detected only because the pellet carrying the ricin had not dissolved as expected.

The KGB also designed a pen-sized assassination weapon to deliver ricin pellets, one of a family of poison assassination pens that delivered gas or liquid poisons.