Hollow Nickel Case

The Hollow Nickel Case (or the Hollow Coin) was the FBI investigation that grew out of the discovery of a container disguised as a U.S. coin and containing a coded message, eventually found to concern the espionage activities of William August Fisher (a.k.a.

The coin had a 1948-dated obverse with the usual copper-nickel composition, but the reverse was minted sometime between October 1942 and the end of 1945, based on the copper-silver alloys used during this period.

Eugene Nicolai Mäki) wanted to defect in May 1957 from Paris, that the FBI was able to link the nickel to KGB agents, including Mikhail Nikolaevich Svirin (a former United Nations employee) and William August Fisher.

[2] When Fisher was arrested, the hotel room and photo studio that he lived in contained multiple items of modern espionage equipment: cameras and film for producing microdots, cipher pads, cufflinks, a hollow shaving brush, shortwave radios, and numerous "trick" containers.

On November 15, 1957, Judge Mortimer W. Byers sentenced Fisher to three sentences to be served concurrently: On February 10, 1962, Fisher was exchanged for American Central Intelligence Agency Lockheed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, who was a prisoner of the Soviet Union.