Crypto spy caper: CIA secretly owned Swiss company that sold encryption products to 120 countries
- Swiss firm Crypto, which was said to be CIA-owned, sold its products to more than 120 countries
- China did not buy encryption devices from Crypto, which kept it largely protected from firm’s spying activities
Switzerland said it was investigating reports that US and German intelligence services raked in the top secret communications of governments around the world for decades using a Swiss company that sold encryption products.
The company, called Crypto AG, sold code-making equipment to more than 120 countries.
But unknown to those governments, Crypto was secretly owned by the CIA, together with Germany’s BND Federal Intelligence Service.
Together they rigged Crypto’s equipment to be able to easily break the codes and read the government’s messages, according to reports by The Washington Post, German television ZTE and Swiss state media SRF.
The main adversaries of the US in the Cold War, the Soviet Union and China, were never Crypto customers but other clients included Iran, India and Pakistan, military juntas in Latin America and the Vatican.
That allowed them to monitor Iran’s mullahs during the 1979 hostage crisis, fed Britain intelligence about Argentina’s military during the Falklands War, and caught Libyan officials congratulating themselves on the 1986 bombing of Berlin’s La Belle nightclub, which was frequented by American servicemen.
