Security News > 2020 > February > Switzerland Investigating Alleged CIA, German Front Company
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.
Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, a German intelligence expert who helped analyze the documents, told the AP that the involvement of western spy agencies in Crypto had long been alleged.
While the BND used the proceeds generated from the sale of cryptography devices to fund field operations, the CIA used the money to buy up rival companies and establish a quasi-monopoly for Crypto, Schmidt-Eenboom said.
Similar U.S. operations involving manipulated communications equipment were detailed by Edward Snowden, a former American intelligence employee once based in Geneva who leaked a large trove of intelligence documents in 2013.