Portugal’s right-wing nationalist leader André Ventura suddenly collapsed

quote:

---

. In a 1975 public hearing, Sen. Church showed the CIA's "heart attack gun" to the world.

The weapon itself resembled a Colt M1911 pistol with a scope, but it didn't fire .45-caliber bullets. Instead, it fired a frozen pellet of saxitoxin, a poisonous substance derived from shellfish that consumed toxic algae blooms. The pellet could be silently fired up to 100 meters away and would enter the body through a pinprick entry wound. The poison would then melt, and within minutes, the victim would be dead.

---