Turkey: Secret USB discovered in 'Gulenist' policeman's dentures

Invisible ink, cameras hidden inside ties, poison-tipped umbrellas. All have been used as tools in order to carry out acts of espionage without detection.

But custom-made USB dental dentures – you whatty? Surely not?

… Well apparently.

As crackdowns continue in Turkey following the failed 15 July coup, Turkish authorities have discovered just such a thing.

Where? In the mouth of a policeman, they claim.

According to Egyptian news website Araby 21 Turkish authorities recently arrested a policeman suspected of being a sympathiser of US-based cleric Fethullah Gullen - accused of July's coup - and discovered the halitosis-burdened espionage device buried within a set of artificial teeth.

The device is said to have held numerous files of various formats - including audio and video - which had been encrypted to prevent their discovery by outsiders.

Although somewhat niche, USB detures are manufactured by a number of companies worldwide including in Japan, and the US. Prices start at around $500 for an 8GB USB, rising to $600 for a 32 GB version. 

Since the 15 July coup, domestic politics in Turkey has been defined by sweeping arrests of individuals suspected of sympathising with the exiled former imam Gulen. Ankara believe he was behind the plot to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Thousands of people, across sectors and class divides, have been detained leading a plethora of rights groups to express concerns over increasingly arbitrary clampdowns and attempts to curtail freedom of speech and civil liberties in the country.

Amid growing state paranoia, and Ankara's desperation to unravel the means by which coup plotters planned their actions, it remains unclear whether Erdogan and the AKP party are now concerned that an army of Gulenists - at large in Turkish society - could be sporting USB dentures, an example of which can be found below: