International spy revelation revealed: Swedish-linked company allowed CIA to spy on over a hundred countries

The story begins with the Swedish Boris Hagelin.

The Swedish inventor and entrepreneur fled from Norway to the United States during World War II and sold simpler encryption machines to the US military. Hagelin went on to Switzerland where he started the company Crypto AG. The company worked closely with the US intelligence service CIA and later also the West German counterpart BND.

On Tuesday, the Washington Post, German public service company ZDF and Swiss public service company SRF revealed that for decades Crypto AG had rigged its encryption products before being resold to states worldwide. As a result, secret communications became available for US and German intelligence services.

The media houses have been given access to the information in a secret CIA report and through several interviews with former employees.

As Boris Hagelin's company, Crypto AG, grew, the CIA and BND bought the business. At the same time, staff who were not familiar with the manipulation of the machines began to suspect that things were not right. The encryption was poorly done and the management did not seem to care about the errors.

German BND withdrew from the operation in the early 1990s. The Germans were worried that the arrangement would be revealed. But Americans continued until 2018, when the company's assets were sold to two other companies.

One was purchased by a Swiss company that provides encryption services to the Swiss state.

The second part, Crypto's international operations, was sold to Swedish entrepreneur Andreas Linde. When Linde is confronted with information about the company's past, he is very surprised.

- If that's true what you say, then I feel betrayed [...] and I think there will be many employees who feel betrayed, as well as customers, he tells The Washington Post.