Paper Evidence
by F. Leader
Do you run a gambling ring? How about a house of pleasure? Could you
be a big time drug trafficker, or maybe you're just a hacker or a phone
phreak with some "sensitive" information. If you are, you probably know of the
wonders of paper. You can write all types of stuff on this wonderful invention
and it stays there. Great for: keeping financial records, storing phone
numbers, plans, holding FBI code names, and, last but not least, evidence.
The FBI has an entire branch dedicated to using this wonderful substance
known as paper against us.
The weaker mind tells you, "Oh, just crumple it real good and hard and
that's it." Wrong. The FBI has been dealing with things like this for years.
At first they put the delicate paper in between two plates of glass.
Then later they used Plexiglas. Weighing about a pound each, they were
difficult to work with. So now they coat the sheets with a thin layer of
polyester restoring the paper to a better condition than before.
The weaker mind says a little bit louder, "Well this time we'll crumple
it real good, so good that if anyone even touches it, it'll fall to pieces."
Wrong one more time.
The feds have this stuff call "parylene." It comes in a granular form and
when baked in paper, it actually rebuilds paper. Here comes the weaker mind
again which says, "Well then, I'll just burn it, Ms. Smarty Pants." Need I say
it again.
Burning is great idea if done right. If it is not burned to ashes then
there is a very good chance that the remaining part could be read. This
especially holds true for burning a pile of papers. The papers in the
middle usually do not get enough oxygen to feed the flames. Even if the papers
are completely charred, the feds can get their infrared lights and photography
that makes the carbon become transparent and the ink opaque.
"Oh Lord, what will we do now!" cries the weak mind. Not to worry. I
have two possible answers.
First choice: flash paper. Flash paper or nitrocellulose is used by
magicians in corny tricks, but it won't be so corny when that little trick gets
you away from the law. The down side is that it is highly unstable. I read
once about a fed lab being destroyed because some dummy had left a bunch of
flash paper in a metal file cabinet that happened to be in direct sunlight.
Since a ream of flash paper has the explosive power of a small bomb, let's
say that a lot of people got away due to lack of evidence. Flash paper
should always be refrigerated! Even then I do not recommend using it for
large scale operations because you want to destroy evidence, not blow up a
small building.
Second: water-soluble paper. This is the favorite of illegal gambling
operations. They place buckets of water at every desk and when the heat
comes everything gets a quick shower and no more evidence. Water-soluble
paper is used in a lot of commercial products such as laundry detergent packages
and pipeline cleaners. Blank water-soluble is extremely hard to find and
even possession of it can be used as evidence. So if you so use it, only store
sheets in use or make sure you destroy all the paper.
Return to $2600 Index