Surveillance Ferrets

With the help of the Carbon Microphone by David Hughes in 1878, police had an early surveillance system. The common problem was locating this device to listen in.

A police sergeant's family had been involved in cable laying work for generations and they often used ferrets for re-runs and cable fixes (to avoid digging up roads), he mentioned this to detectives and they realised that if they could get a ferret to run down old pipes into buildings with a suitable microphone (and enough wire) they may be able to snoop on conversations and collect vital evidence.

Thus was born the FSB (Ferret Surveillance Branch) of Old Scotland Yard.

No documents exist today about the branch but word of mouth reports suggest that it took 5 years of training work to get the ferrets and the officers involved into a position where they were starting to help crack cases. Once confronted with transcripts of shady meetings criminal gangs often confessed or started infighting suspecting team members of being of grass causing the gang to drop each other in the frame. Nobody ever found out about the ferrets involvement. Eventually laws about obtaining evidence caused the surveillance technique to be outlawed.

If you want to pick up a copy of Modern Ferret magazine you will find an article about cable laying ferrets.