The Super-Secure Delivery Service That Only Diplomats Can Use

Video written by Amy Muller

[martinyordanov]

As a Bulgarian, I'm absolutely not surprised the only package that was lost was stolen here

[christopherg]

Imagine being the one guy in the service that lost a package - and it is a freaking piano to boot.
“If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning."

[davidwolfhudson]

One nitpick: Courier pouches are not always met by diplomatic couriers at the receiving end. The only requirement is that the recipient be a top secret cleared employee. At some Embassies, this function is performed by the cleared American IT staff, at others there is a rotation amogst staff from across the post, and at some of the largest posts there are positions dedicated to courier pouch processing who are resident in that post and not themselves part of the DCS. (Source: Volume 12, section 126.1 of the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual, available on the Internet).

[watcher]

Yeah, right! There I was a Second Lieutenant recently assigned to First Signal Group in Orleans, France. This was 1961. MY CO called me in one morning in early December. "Hey, Lieutenant, you're Jewish, aren't you? Therefore, you won't be celebrating Christmas, will you?" I nodded. "I've got a little job for you. On December 25th you're going to be assigned as a diplomatic courier on a flight from Paris to New York City. Your orders are being cut."
Hey that was great. I was from NYC and I could surprise my folks.
On Monday morning I arrived at Orly Airport and went to the diplomatic office. I got my .45, met the Sergeant assigned and was taken to the baggage area. The compartment was loaded with postal sacks. I sealed the door and climbed the stairs to the plane's passenger area.
Well, surprise, when we boarded the whole coach passenger area was filled with mail sacks. Primarily military mail heading home to the US. There were no coach passengers.
The stewardess told us we had been upgraded to First Class. In First Class there were only four other passengers:
Bob Hope and Danny Thomas. They had been in Paris for a TV special.
The Sergeant and I had a ball. We played bridge with them; we ate with them; we heard war stories, and I heard the famous story about David Niven and the Battle of the Bulge which I have told numerous times.
When I arrived in New York City I taxied to my folk's apartment, had a great dinner and was back in France the next day.
What fun!

[joermnyc]

Note: the Diplomatic Security Service is one of the HARDEST special agent jobs to get in the Federal Government. Under 2% of applicants make it through the multiple tests (even a writing sample!), in person vetting process, extensive background checks and situational judgement scenarios. Even after all of that, you now must ACE 9 months of intensive training before you get to work as an agent. Oh, and you need 4 years of college and can’t be older than 37 UNLESS you have been working in the military, and even then you’ll need a wavier from the higher ups at DSS.

[KurtRichterCISSP]

Fun fact: USPS Priority (edit: REGISTERED) Mail is approved for classified material up to SECRET

[resterAnonyme]

As a former Defense Courier also called DCS (Defense Courier Service) we worked with them primarily between our Ft. Meade, MD station and their D.C area location. We would hand over material they could delivery more efficiently and vice versa. It was a fun job for about a year or 2, but there comes a point where it gets monotonous. I got to go to Cuba, Germany, Canada, Portugal and flew in a UPS cargo jump seat to Louisville, KY quite often. One major difference is the DCS (Military) uses 2 couriers vs the 1 the state department uses, but generally we have a lot more classified then they do. 20 years ago someone wrote about out history and we had a spy at out Paris location helping out the soviets. In 1980 a hijacking in Italy and after the Gulf War the Saudi King wrote a $760 Million check we delivered to D.C.

[CommandantNOVA]

FYI at 4:10, "Mauritian" refers to people from the Island country of Mauritius - not Mauritania. I was confused how they suddenly built a road from Senegal into the ocean.

[D_Winds]

Quite interesting! It'd be easy enough to make a TV series out of this idea, title it "Couriers", and exagerate some stories to create an amusing show.

[aresef]

In the 1980s, Nigerian officials worked with Mossad to abduct a former minister and stick him in a crate labeled as a diplomatic parcel. It wasn’t properly labeled so British customs officials were able to open it.

[joewilson]

When I was in the Army, I did the mail for my Military Intelligence unit. The deployed back from Iraq, and had to mail some of their classified documents. I had to go through the whole process of getting a secret security clearance just to drive my GSA van to the post office, sign for a poster tube marked classified, drive it to the CO, and leave it in a chair in his office while he finished putting his stuff on shelves.

[qovro]

How long did it take for Amy to get a diplomatic job so she could research this episode?

[deejaygaming]

Oh finally someone made a video about this extremely specific topic that I really needed to know about, no way!

[doujinflip]

Couriers escorting pouches also automatically fly business class when available since they're on the clock, and get to keep the miles too 😮

But it's _when available_, since not all routes can use a commercial airline and someone higher up does the scheduling. So there's also cases where they're seated on charter flights, airfreighter jump seats, riding shotgun in a truck, or even berthing on the dreaded transoceanic slow boat.

[QuestionableMorality]

I remember when I travelled back (with a big group of diplomats) from Beijing to the U.S. they gave us a bunch of these orange packages to take with us because of increased tensions with China. So basically every one of the diplomats acted as a courier I guess. This was about a 6 months ago.

[LacrosseBro]

There's actually a really interesting book about the events Sam describes at 1:26. It's called The Spy in Moscow Station.

[Marylandbrony]

4:22 That is no longer the flag of Mauritania. There are now two red bands on the top and bottom.

[henrikrundgren]

4:40 - The pronunciation of Łódź was amazing. 75% of letters are not something generally found in English; but that's apparently not an issue, just remove all the pesky extra lines and read whatever is left.
(Apart from that great video, as usual)

[Dumplingu]

According to a polish coworker, Lodz is pronounced like wodge

[andrewstockwell]

I think you meant Mauritanian, not Mauritian. Mauritius is an island nation in the Indian Ocean.