It is August 1978; Georgi Markov is in his London flat when the phone rings. He’s greeted by the sound of a cold and distorted voice.

“Georgi Markov you’re going to die”.  

Markov is used to these death threats; he could set his watch by them. And so, he replies in his usual laconic way, “Killing me will only make me a martyr”.  

He is about to hang up but for once the voice has a comeback.  

“Not this time. This time you will not become a martyr. It will look as if you died of natural causes. You will be killed by a poison that the West can neither detect nor treat”.  

A month later, Markov would be dead. But little did the murderer know that by giving Markov this warning they would turn what looked like a natural death into a full-scale murder inquiry.  

It would become the most famous assassination of the Cold War, and yet to this day no one has been charged with his murder. However recently declassified documents may shed light on who was responsible and uncover the shadowy work of a mysterious organisation known as Service 7 or, more bluntly, the ‘Murder Bureau’.  

In this episode we re-examine the case files of this long unsolved assassination, explore the tactics and gadgetry used in a secret war played out across Europe and unravel the history of the illusive Murder Bureau. 

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