Swiss authorities said Tuesday they have opened an investigation into allegations a Zug, Switzerland-based maker of encryption devices was a front operated by the CIA and West German intelligence that enabled them to break the codes of the countries that used their products.
A joint investigation published Tuesday by Germany’s ZDF public broadcaster and The Washington Post based on documents from the CIA and Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency revealed that Crypto AG made millions of dollars for the two agencies, while providing them with access to the encrypted communications of more than 120 countries for decades.
The main adversaries of the U.S. 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, the two outlets reported.
Among other things, ZDF and the Post reported the spy agencies controlled nearly every aspect of the company’s operations from 1970 on. 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.
Swiss Defense Ministry spokeswoman, Carolina Bohren, told The Associated Press that “following research carried out by the media” her office had notified the Cabinet about the Crypto case on November 5, 2019. On Jan. 15, the decision was made to appoint a former supreme court judge to look into the reports and report back by the end of June.
“The events under discussion date back to 1945 and are difficult to reconstruct and interpret in the present-day context,” she said.
Erich S ..
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