CIA-owned firm sold ‘rigged’ equipment across the world, including M’sia
In a damning expose, a US daily alleged that several nations had purchased ‘rigged’ encryption equipment from a now-defunct company, owned by the US and then-West Germany spy agencies.
In a report, The Washington Post provided details on how the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then-West Germany’s BND were secretly owning the company, Crypto AG, which sold the equipment since the 70s.
Malaysia was one of countries that had purchased the tampered equipment.
The news report added that not only the two agencies made a lot of money from the sale of the ‘rigged’ encryption devices, they also managed to gather intelligence from the nations, in a clandestine operation.
“The Swiss firm made millions selling equipment to more than 120 countries well into the 21st century. Its clients included Iran, military juntas in Latin America, nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and even the Vatican.
“But none of them knew that Crypto was secretly owned by the CIA, in a highly classified partnership with the West German intelligence.
“These spy agencies rigged the company’s devices so they could easily break the codes that the countries used to send encrypted messages.
“The US and its allies exploited other nations’ gullibility for years, taking their money and stealing their secrets,” the report said.
The covert operation was allegedly code-named ‘Thesaurus’ before being changed to ‘Rubicon’ later on.
Apart from Malaysia, other nations mentioned include Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Ireland, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela.
Even US allies under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) such as Spain, Greece, Turkey and Italy were also listed as Crypto’s clients.
No details were mentioned on when the purchases were made or for what reasons.
The expose was made based on a 2004 CIA report on the clandestine operation, oral history by German intelligence officers and interviews with a variety of sources, including former Crypto AG employees.
“The overlapping accounts (from US and Germany) expose frictions between the two partners over money, control and ethical limits, with West Germans frequently being appalled at the enthusiasm with which US spies often targeted allies.
“But both sides describe the operation as successful beyond their wildest projections.
“At times, including in the 1980s, Crypto AG accounted for roughly 40% of the diplomatic cables and other transmissions by foreign governments that cryptanalysts at the National Security Agency (NSA) decoded and mined for intelligence, according to the documents,” said the report.
Among the operations carried out was ‘monitoring communications’ of former Egyptian president, the late Anwar Sadat during the Camp David peace talks in the 1970s.
It was also used against former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and former Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi.
When BND pulled out of Crypto in the 1990s, the CIA bought over its stake in the company and continued with the covert operations.
The report indicated that Crypto started facing financial problems in the mid-90s and the CIA poured in a lot of money to the company in order to keep its intelligence gathering operations running.
Crypto was eventually liquidated in 2018 and most of its assets were purchased by CyOne Security and Crypto International.
