For more than 50 years, the US Central Intelligence Agency has been monitoring secret military and diplomatic correspondence of more than 100 countries through a Swiss encryption company, according to an investigation published Tuesday in the online version of the Tribune de Geneve newspaper.
This is Crypto AG, which has been based in the Swiss canton of Zug since 1952. It provided governments with encryption devices to protect the transmission of sensitive data and messages.
As noted, since 1958, the CIA, and then the German foreign intelligence (BND), controlled the activities of Crypto AG through the Minerva front company in Liechtenstein. At the same time, the Swiss authorities were aware of the activities of foreign intelligence services.
Crypto AG's encryption devices were used during wars or in the transfer of sensitive information between embassies and governments. At the same time, the intelligence services of the United States and Germany could track these messages using specially created "holes" in the encryption security system.
The article indicates that the services of Crypto AG were used by about 130 countries, including Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Argentina. In particular, encrypted messages were actively intercepted by the United States and Germany during negotiations with Iran on the release of American hostages, terrorist attacks from Libya on the United States, the war for the Falkland Islands between Argentina and Great Britain, as well as during the American invasion of Panama in 1989.
In 1993, German intelligence relinquished control of Crypto AG, but the US continued its operations until at least 2012.
In 2018, Crypto AG was split into two parts, one of which began to serve exclusively Swiss customers. The second company is called Crypto International and is focused on foreign clients. Her website currently has a statement that she has nothing to do with Crypto AG or the US and German intelligence agencies, but is a private firm that bought out the Zug brand and assets in 2018.
