The CIA's Most Valuable Spy

0:00 This is the US embassy in Thran.

0:03 A huge crowd of students has gathered outside the gates.

0:06 They're demanding the extradition of the deposed sha Muhammad Raza Pathi.

0:11 For decades, he ruled Iran as an authoritarian

0:13 monarch supported by the United States.

0:16 The students are radical supporters

0:18 of the leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah.

0:21 They've been protesting here for weeks.

0:24 But today is different.

0:25 Suddenly, they begin to climb the walls.

0:28 Hundreds storm the embassy grounds.

0:31 The security guards aren't authorized to fire their weapons.

0:34 The protesters meet almost no resistance and they quickly break in.

0:39 They capture 52 US citizens and hold them hostage for 444 days.

0:44 For their captives, it's a nightmare.

0:46 For the US, it's the start of a major international crisis.

0:50 In the months that follow,

0:51 US President Jimmy Carter tries to negotiate with the Iranian militants.

0:55 But Iran is now run by Ayatollah who openly supports the hostage takers.

1:00 The negotiations run through Algeria which acts as a mediator.

1:04 Communication between Algeria and Iran is encrypted.

1:07 No one can read or listen in.

1:09 Or so they believe.

1:12 But after every exchange,

1:13 Carter knows exactly what the Iranians are saying behind closed doors.

1:17 How is that possible?

1:21 The answer leads to Switzerland and a company called Crypto AG.

1:25 The devices it builds are at the center of a clandestine

1:28 operation that shaped world politics for over half a century.

1:31 Because Crypto AG has two secret co-owners,

1:34 the CIA and Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, the BND.

1:40 Americans have been the victims of a terrorist attack in Europe.

1:42 To me, the most surprising thing here was the enormity of this

1:46 series of strikes against the headquarters.

1:48 Argentina launched the invasion of the Falkland Islands.

1:52 This is Operation Rubicon,

1:53 one of the biggest intelligence coups of the 20th century.

2:16 The story was enormous for for us, for the Washington Post.

2:19 I mean, for days and days, for I think almost a week,

2:22 it was one of the most read stories on our website.

2:25 And my interactions with with US intelligence

2:28 people throughout this period were kind of funny.

2:31 Like some of some of them were like, hm, I wish you hadn't done that.

2:35 But others were like, "Yeah, how cool." Like, we were part of that.

2:40 That's what we do.

2:42 This is Greg Miller.

2:43 He's an investigative journalist with the Washington Post.

2:46 We traveled to London to interview him for this video.

2:49 Back in 2020, he broke the story that our research for this video is based on.

2:53 Together with the German and Swiss broadcasters ZDF and SRF,

2:57 links are in the description.

2:59 Chapter 1, the Handshake.

3:03 Operation Rubicon begins with a friendship.

3:07 Washington DC 1951.

3:09 Two men meet for dinner at the exclusive membersonly Cosmos Club.

3:14 This man, William Freriedman is one

3:16 of the American military's leading cryptologists.

3:18 The man in front of him is Boris Hogalin,

3:20 an entrepreneur and inventor from Sweden.

3:23 Freriedman and Hogalin are business partners.

3:25 More importantly, they're close friends.

3:27 They write each other frequently and bond

3:29 over their shared background and interests.

3:31 Both were born in pre-sovviet Russia.

3:34 Both love tinkering and both are deeply fascinated by cryptologology,

3:38 the science of encoding and decoding information.

3:42 Boris Hogalan developed cipher machines,

3:44 small mechanical devices that allow users to write and read secret messages.

3:49 His biggest customer is the US military.

3:51 During World War II, Haggelan sells them the M209,

3:55 a compact portable cipher machine that doesn't require electricity.

3:59 Just bigger than a lunchbox, it comes with a lightweight canvas bag

4:02 that soldiers can easily attach to their gear.

4:05 American troops frequently use it

4:06 in the field to quickly exchange encrypted messages.

4:09 The US produces more than 140,000 units, and Hogalin becomes a millionaire.

4:14 But after World War II, business suddenly slows down, so he needs new customers.

4:20 Freriedman realizes Hegelen is a good enough

4:22 businessman that if the United States doesn't act,

4:26 he's going to start selling cryptological devices to many,

4:30 many governments around the world.

4:32 And the United States will not be able to read these communications,

4:36 will be blind and deaf to what other countries are doing and saying.

4:41 And so this leads to all these conversations

4:44 in Washington about what to do about it.

4:47 Freriedman meets Hogalan for dinner and makes him an offer on behalf of the CIA.

4:51 From now on, Hogalin's highsecurity cipher machines will only

4:55 be sold to selected countries handpicked by the Americans.

4:59 The rest of the world will get older models that are much easier to crack.

5:02 To compensate for the business he loses,

5:04 Haggalan is said to have received $700,000.

5:08 A year later, he moves his Swedish company to a Swiss town called Soup,

5:12 where he founds Crypto Aag.

5:14 That same year, the company releases the CX-52.

5:18 This new cipher machine is so complex, many believe it's uncrackable.

5:22 But is it really Chapter 2, Crypto?

5:29 To understand how secret messages are encrypted,

5:31 we track down a real cipher machine.

5:34 And not just any cipher machine, an actual model developed by Haggalan.

5:42 Cryptography turns an ordinary sentence like

5:44 this one into an allegible jumble of letters.

5:46 Each letter in a message is replaced by another seemingly at random.

5:50 So while anyone can read the encrypted message,

5:52 they won't actually understand it unless they have the right key.

5:55 Say we want to send an encrypted message from Amsterdam to Berlin.

5:59 The first thing we need is the same type of machine on both ends.

6:02 Then both sides need to know the daily key,

6:04 which is basically the machine's default setting for the day.

6:07 It determines how the key wheels in the revolving drum are configured.

6:12 The so-called message key is a short-term setting for each specific message

6:15 and determines which letter or number is on top of each key wheel.

6:19 To encrypt a word, you select each of the letters on this disc one at a time.

6:23 Each time you pull this crank, this is what it looks like inside the machine.

6:28 Several wheels start to move.

6:30 Each time you do this, the machine generates a new and seemingly random code.

6:34 But mechanical systems like this one don't produce arbitrary results.

6:38 They can't.

6:39 Most follow fixed instructions or algorithms

6:41 and are designed to eliminate randomness.

6:44 So no matter how complex the algorithms are, they can usually be reproduced.

6:48 Inside the machine, each letter is assigned a new letter.

6:51 A rotating drum prints this new letter onto a strip

6:54 of paper which will eventually carry the whole secret message.

7:00 Um, let's try this one.

7:14 That's our input word in encrypted form.

7:17 Now we can send this super secret message to its

7:19 recipient in Berlin by radio for example using Morse code.

7:23 To decrypt it, the receiver also needs a CX-52

7:26 set to the same daily key and message key.

7:29 Both sides must have previously agreed on a system

7:31 that allows them to use the exact same keys and settings.

7:34 Most of the time, they probably use a shared

7:36 key sheet indicating the correct settings for each day.

7:39 This mode selector lets you switch between D and C.

7:43 D is for deciphering and C is for ciphering.

7:46 When we enter the coded word letter by letter,

7:48 the machine recreates the original top secret message.

7:51 Cheers.

7:51 Yeah, it's not exactly state secrets.

7:53 We're YouTubers.

7:54 All right.

7:55 The CX-52 comes in different variants which differ mainly in their shape,

7:59 color, and controls.

8:00 They all work the same way, except one.

8:03 The one-time pad version is so secure that not even the NSA can crack it.

8:07 Instead of the usual key wheels,

8:09 this model runs a perforated paper strip through the machine.

8:12 This sequence of these holes is truly random,

8:14 making each pattern completely unique.

8:17 To read one of these encrypted messages,

8:19 the receiver needs a paper strip identical to the one used by the sender.

8:22 This is essentially a temporary key to the lock.

8:25 It's only ever used once and is destroyed immediately after.

8:28 So, is your Spidey sense tingling?

8:31 All right, before you go all sponsor block, check this out for a second.

8:34 A cold war encryption machine is on your mind

8:36 and you're worried about ops intercepting your communications.

8:39 I get it.

8:40 But the more likely threat, it's online.

8:42 No paper slip or cipher machine required.

8:44 Your personal data might be out there,

8:46 just harvested by data brokers instead of the BND.

8:49 your name, address, phone number, browsing habits,

8:51 all sitting in hundreds of sketchy databases sold to whoever pays.

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9:03 Incogn's custom removal feature even lets you flag a specific

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9:22 The CX-52 is a huge success.

9:24 Hogland sells it to dozens of countries and he

9:27 faithfully honors his agreement with Freriedman and the United States.

9:30 The new machines are also sold only to select states.

9:34 But over time that starts to break down.

9:37 Hegeland becomes frustrated by this.

9:40 He's giving up lots of money.

9:41 He's leaving lots of sales untapped because of his willingness

9:46 to abide by these constraints that the Americans are putting on him.

9:49 Ultimately, Washington realizes this and decides to make

9:55 this a more formal arrangement with Hegeland.

9:58 The CIA makes him another offer.

10:00 They'll help market his crypto devices worldwide

10:02 and not just to CIA approved countries.

10:05 They want as many governments as possible

10:06 to exclusively use Hoggle and cipher machines.

10:09 But there's a catch.

10:11 The CIA demands he produce two different versions of the CX-52.

10:14 The first is a highly secure, essentially unbreakable variant reserved

10:18 for countries the US considers friendly.

10:20 Everyone else gets a weaker version that the CIA can easily crack.

10:25 Haggalan once again agrees, and once again, he doesn't walk away empty-handed.

10:30 This time, he reportedly receives nearly $900,000,

10:33 which would be roughly $10 million today.

10:36 On top of that, he's said to have received $70,000 a year as a retainer.

10:41 And so Hegeland at that point crosses an important threshold.

10:44 He's gone from being sort of a passive but important ally of the West,

10:49 Western governments led by the United States to an active

10:53 participant on the payroll of US intelligence, an asset.

11:00 For many years, journalists and investigators

11:02 wondered how exactly the machines were manipulated.

11:05 It's almost impossible to tell from the outside.

11:08 That's because there isn't just one machine,

11:10 but many different versions with different internal settings.

11:13 In 2021, Dutch IT expert Bart Wessle

11:16 compared several CX-52s with older C-52 models.

11:20 And he noticed something strange.

11:22 The bars on the revolving drum have tiny metal lugs attached to them.

11:26 These lugs slide to the left and determine whether or not the keys advance.

11:30 But in older C-52 models, 30 of the 32 bars are completely blocked,

11:35 held in place by six metal discs.

11:38 Only the last two slide bars can actually move.

11:40 The rest are effectively dead.

11:42 As a result, the C-52 produces far simpler

11:45 and more predictable patterns and therefore much weaker encryption.

11:49 So, Crypto and the CIA either equipped customers with outdated,

11:53 crackable models like the C-52, or they gave them modern CX-52s secretly

11:58 configured to behave like older, less secure models.

12:01 Another way to make the machines less secure

12:02 is to prevent them from being used properly.

12:05 The NSA reportedly created different manuals for different customers.

12:09 Some may have been deliberately rigged.

12:11 Users believed their machine was operating securely,

12:14 but they were like locks that clicked but never really snapped shut.

12:18 Our machine is one of these less secure variants.

12:21 Our message from Amsterdam to Berland

12:22 probably would have been decrypted quickly.

12:26 By the late 1960s, Boris Hogalan is almost 80 years old.

12:30 Crypto AG has grown to 180 employees.

12:33 Hegelan is looking to get out of his business.

12:35 He's getting older.

12:36 He's wants to retire.

12:38 He wants to secure the future of this company.

12:41 Only one of his children is interested in cryptography.

12:44 His youngest son, Bo Hoglin, Jr.

12:47 Bo works at crypto and is actively involved in developing new machines.

12:51 He also handles the company's business in North and South America.

12:54 Bo has yet to prove himself, but eventually Haggalan Senior would like

12:58 to hand his son control over the company.

13:01 But the CIA doesn't trust him.

13:03 They think he's unpredictable.

13:05 And while B knows the company's dark secret, he doesn't approve.

13:09 At the same time, other players are starting to take an interest in crypto.

13:13 It's true that other countries and other governments,

13:16 especially allied governments,

13:18 are to certain degrees aware of what's happening here,

13:23 but they're sharing that intelligence

13:26 with their closest allies at various times, including the Brits at times,

13:30 including the the the French and sometimes the Germans.

13:35 They're not always saying where this information

13:37 comes from, but these other governments

13:39 are putting two and two together and starting to figure out what this is,

13:43 and they're, you know, they're they're jealous.

13:47 Ugalan's son is looking less and less like his father's successor.

13:51 Now married, he's struggling financially.

13:53 He asks for advances on his inheritance

13:55 often enough that his father finally refuses.

13:58 The CIA is concerned, too.

14:00 They suspect Bo may have been talking about the secret operation

14:03 and worry he might refuse to continue selling the manipulated machines.

14:07 Bo's relationships with the CIA and his father start to fray.

14:11 Meanwhile, Germany's intelligence service, the BND, proposes a deal to the CIA.

14:16 In June 1970, each agency purchases half of Crypto AG.

14:21 Hogalan receives 25 million Swiss Franks in three installments.

14:25 According to the Washington Post,

14:26 that amounts to over $5.75 million at the time.

14:30 Bo remains with the company.

14:32 At first, according to the same report, the deal is routed through a law

14:36 firm in the European micro state of Likensstein.

14:39 The use of anonymous shell companies helps

14:40 the two intelligence agencies conceal their ownership.

14:44 The BND and the CIA now have full control over Crypto AG,

14:48 and almost no one knows.

14:50 Huggalan makes a fortune with this deal,

14:53 but just a few months later, all that money probably seems virtually worthless.

14:57 Bo dies in a car accident near Washington DC.

15:01 Hogalin is devastated.

15:02 Many years later, a former crypto employee will publicly

15:05 claim the car accident was actually a targeted attack.

15:08 He also claims that even Hogalin's senior had doubts

15:11 about the crash and that he had the case investigated,

15:14 but nothing ever came of it.

15:16 A journalist and intelligence expert tells us that at the time,

15:18 even the BND's vice president suspected Bose's death wasn't an accident.

15:23 American intelligence services may have feared that Bo would use his role

15:26 as sales manager for Latin America

15:27 to stop selling manipulated machines in the region.

15:31 No evidence has surfaced to support these claims.

15:34 After his son's death, Boris Hoglin withdraws from the company.

15:39 After the takeover by the BND and the CIA in 1970,

15:42 business at Crypto A takes off.

15:44 This leaked CIA document shows sales surging.

15:48 In the first 5 years alone, revenue jumps from 15 to 51 million Swiss Franks.

15:54 Governments around the world trust crypto

15:55 machines with their most sensitive communications.

15:58 This becomes a real point of tension

16:02 in this operation between the United States and the Germans.

16:05 From the minute the Germans are involved,

16:08 they're often deeply troubled by what they perceive as American greed.

16:16 Americans, they think, the Germans think,

16:19 are willing to to trick, dupe, exploit anybody.

16:23 The Germans are less comfortable with that.

16:26 Partly because of their World War II history,

16:29 partly because they're trying to build new alliances in Europe at this time.

16:33 They don't want to make enemies across Europe.

16:35 The Americans don't really care as much.

16:38 In the end, the Germans discomfort doesn't matter.

16:40 The secret intelligence operation is just getting started.

16:44 Its original code name is thesaurus.

16:48 Chapter 3.

16:50 The operation.

16:52 April 5, 1986.

16:54 West Berlin.

16:55 The vibes at the label nightclub are especially good tonight.

16:58 Hundreds of people are dancing to funk and soul.

17:01 The club is popular with the American soldiers stationed in the city.

17:05 But sometime after midnight, a bomb explodes inside the club.

17:10 Two people die at the scene.

17:12 A woman of Turkish descent and an American soldier.

17:15 Another dies from his injuries at the hospital.

17:18 Exact numbers vary depending on the source,

17:20 but more than 100 are wounded, at least 28 of them severely.

17:24 It's one of the most severe attacks against Americans on German soil.

17:28 The White House responds within days.

17:30 President Reagan publicly blames Libya for the attack.

17:33 The country's leader, Mama Gaddafi, is accused of ordering the bombing.

17:36 But how could he possibly know that so quickly?

17:40 Well, Libya uses the weaker Hogland machines to encrypt its communications.

17:44 The BND and the CIA can simply read along.

17:48 Reagan says Libya's embassy in East Berlin received the order

17:50 to carry out the attack about a week before it happened.

17:53 According to a 2020 report by German broadcaster ZDF,

17:57 it remains unclear whether the intelligence agencies

17:59 also knew about the plans before the attack.

18:03 Retaliation comes 10 days later.

18:05 According to media reports, the United States bombed several targets in Libya,

18:09 killing at least 60 people.

18:12 In the 1980s, the operation's code name has changed from thesaurus to Rubicon.

18:18 It's a reference to the phrase crossing the Rubicon,

18:20 which means passing the point of no return.

18:23 The intelligence agencies cross that line for good

18:25 when they begin actively influencing a war.

18:28 The conflict revolves around this archipelago in the South Atlantic,

18:31 a few hundred km off the coast of Argentina.

18:34 Britain has controlled the Faulland Islands since the 19th century,

18:38 but Argentina has long claimed them as its own.

18:42 Early one Friday morning in 1982, Argentine forces attempt to seize the islands.

18:47 The British garrison of just 68 men faces hundreds of Argentinian soldiers.

18:52 Eventually, they're forced to surrender,

18:54 but Britain quickly sends reinforcements,

18:56 and the two countries fight for over 70 days.

18:59 The Argentinians have no clue their cipher machines are compromised.

19:03 Their radiocoms are being intercepted,

19:05 and both the Americans and Germans are able to decrypt them.

19:09 Intel relevant to the Fula's war, is quietly funneled to Britain.

19:14 On May 2, a British submarine, the HMS Conqueror,

19:17 sneaks up at an Argentine cruiser, the Belgrano.

19:20 Once it's within range, it launches its torpedoes, which hit home.

19:26 More than 300 Argentinian soldiers die in the attack.

19:29 Intercepted radio communications played a crucial role

19:32 in the decision to destroy the ship.

19:34 On June 14, 1982, Britain officially wins the war.

19:39 Around 900 people have lost their lives.

19:41 The Faulland Islands remain under British control.

19:44 According to Swiss broadcaster SRF,

19:46 the intercepted messages were decisive for the outcome of the war.

19:50 Many of the countries that bought crypto devices were in Latin America.

19:53 And this is during a period where Latin America is in turmoil.

19:58 There are military coups after military coups.

20:01 There are death squads.

20:02 There are murders, state sponsored murders and suppression of populations.

20:08 And there there are still huge questions.

20:12 1978, 4 years before the Faulland's war.

20:15 Argentina is hosting the FIFA World Cup.

20:17 West Germany is playing Austria in the second group stage.

20:21 The world is watching as the German national team fights to defend its title.

20:25 But just 11 km away, people are fighting for their lives.

20:30 This is a brutal detention center for opponents of the Argentine military huta.

20:34 At the time, the country is ruled by a ruthless dictatorship.

20:37 Critics of the regime are abducted, tortured, and killed.

20:41 Campo de la Ribera is one of the Huta's

20:43 most important detention centers in the region.

20:45 In total, 4,000 people are brought here over the years.

20:49 The Argentine military uses crypto devices to encrypt its communications.

20:53 But at a spy station in northern Germany,

20:55 their messages are intercepted and deciphered by the BND.

20:59 What they discover is horrifying.

21:02 Military planes are flying thousands of dissident out over the Atlantic Ocean,

21:06 then dropping them to their deaths.

21:08 and Germany and the US simply look on, essentially bystanders

21:11 as an estimated 30,000 people become victims of the dictatorship.

21:16 Ahead of the World Cup,

21:17 several human rights organizations call for a boycott of the event,

21:20 but West Germany participates anyway.

21:23 Argentina ends up winning the tournament.

21:26 Why didn't the intelligence agencies do anything?

21:30 This is always a dilemma for intelligence agencies.

21:34 You learn information through delicate programs.

21:38 Do you act on it?

21:40 Because if you do, you risk ruining that access going forward.

21:45 You risk exposing what let you get into what

21:50 let you obtain that secret in the first place.

21:54 Besides, this is still in the middle of the Cold War.

21:56 alliances with dictators, with military rulers,

22:00 including those that were committing atrocities against their own citizens.

22:05 At times, these are things that the American government was willing

22:08 to accept to prevent these countries from falling into into communist regimes.

22:15 According to the investigation by the Washington Post and ZDF,

22:18 Crypto A did business with more than 100 countries.

22:21 62 of them could be identified.

22:24 Besides NATO member states,

22:25 many of the customers were countries in South America and Africa.

22:28 Even the Vatican used crypto machines

22:30 and its communications were intercepted, too.

22:33 For a long time, crypto devices inspired a high level of trust.

22:37 A company from Switzerland just had to be neutral, right?

22:40 But after nearly 30 years,

22:41 some customers began to question the security of their cipher machines.

22:47 When the operation started in the early 1970s,

22:50 only a handful of people knew about Crypto's secret deal.

22:53 One was Peter Frutiger, possibly the company's most important engineer.

22:57 In 2020, he gave an interview to the Swiss newspaper NZZ.

23:01 Until 1977, Frutiger was the company's deputy director and head of development.

23:06 He was also the link between Crypto AG and the two intelligence agencies.

23:10 He's said to have made dozens of visits to the BND headquarters

23:13 near Munich and regular trips to the US to meet with intelligence officials.

23:17 At first, he doesn't have a problem keeping crypto secret.

23:20 He thinks he's on the right side of history,

23:22 aiding in the grand fight against the forces of evil in the world.

23:25 But a high-profile client makes him doubt this stance.

23:28 Of all people, it's an autocrat, Muhammad Resa Pathi, the Sha of Iran.

23:33 A few years before his dramatic downfall, the Sha wants to upgrade his Swiss

23:36 village security with new cipher technology from crypto.

23:40 He's friends with Fruger, who takes care of the job personally.

23:43 During the job, the two men talk.

23:45 Suddenly, the Sha says he's heard about

23:47 manipulated cipher machines circulating on the market,

23:50 but not Hogalin's devices.

23:51 Of course, those are the only ones left he can trust.

23:55 The Shaw doesn't know that his own machines have been tampered with.

23:58 But Frutiger does, and he's starting to feel guilty about it.

24:02 By 1977, his internal conflict reaches a breaking point,

24:06 and he confronts Crypto's executives.

24:08 According to him, this leads to irreconcilable differences.

24:11 Fruitiger leaves the company,

24:13 contacts the Swiss authorities, and becomes a whistleblower.

24:16 Many years later, he goes public with his story.

24:19 But he won't be the first to expose

24:20 the secret intelligence operation to the world.

24:26 Chapter 4, The Downfall.

24:30 Hans Buer is considered one of crypto's best salesmen.

24:33 He travels the world to sell Hogland cipher machines.

24:36 He doesn't know about the company's secret.

24:38 He has close connections in Iran

24:40 and the country is one of crypto's biggest clients.

24:43 In March 1992, he flies to Thrron

24:45 for a routine business trip and doesn't come back.

24:49 Before his return, he's arrested and taken to a military prison.

24:52 The Iranians interrogate him for months.

24:55 The regime appears to suspect that Hogalan's machines are rigged.

24:58 Beller can hear other inmates being shot and tortured.

25:02 The interrogations drag on for hundreds of hours and produce nothing.

25:06 He really doesn't know anything.

25:09 After 9 months, crypto pays Iran

25:11 a million dollar ransom to secure Ber's release.

25:14 According to the Washington Post, the money is secretly provided by the BND.

25:18 The CIA refuses to chip in, citing

25:20 a policy that forbids giving in to ransom demands.

25:24 Beller is finally free, but deeply traumatized.

25:27 Crypto no longer wants to work with him.

25:29 And that's when his doubts begin.

25:31 Were the Iranians right after all?

25:34 Is crypto really hiding a sinister secret?

25:37 Buer takes his suspicions to the press,

25:39 putting crypto a in the global spotlight.

25:42 There's a real complicated moral dimension to operations

25:46 like this when it starts affecting people's lives.

25:49 They're pawns.

25:50 They're used.

25:51 They're exploited.

25:52 They're manipulated.

25:53 And they're discarded.

25:55 Right?

25:55 I mean, Ber's life was ruined by this.

25:58 Uh he's tried many years to get people to believe him

26:01 that this that this was an illegal um and immoral operation.

26:06 Buer's statements are backed by others, including Peter Frutiger,

26:09 who's still an anonymous source at the time.

26:12 Several countries respond by cancelelling their contracts with crypto,

26:15 including Argentina, Italy, and Egypt.

26:17 Ironically enough, Iran does not.

26:20 In fact, the country starts buying new machines almost immediately.

26:23 Despite multiple investigations into the matter, the case never reaches court.

26:27 There's not enough solid evidence,

26:29 but the relationship between the CIA and the BND is damaged for good.

26:33 In 1993, the BND pulls out of the operation.

26:36 According to the Washington Post,

26:38 the CIA buys up their crypto shares for $17 million.

26:42 And according to the Post, the operation continues all the way to 2018.

26:47 In 2020, intelligence documents are leaked to the Washington

26:50 Post in the German and Swiss channels ZDF and SRF.

26:53 A 96-page CIA report intended for internal use chronicles the entire operation.

26:58 Its claims are confirmed by an intelligence

27:00 expert who had access to the document.

27:02 It's called Manurva, a history.

27:05 Together, journalists analyze the report.

27:07 Greg Miller from the Washington Post is part of that joint effort.

27:11 To me, the most surprising thing here was was the the enormity of this.

27:17 In some ways, it was it was not that the US

27:20 intelligence agency would do something secret and that it would be successful,

27:24 but that it could do so over a period of many decades.

27:28 That it could do so by tricking dozens, many over 100 other governments.

27:35 Later that same year,

27:36 the story breaks and the repercussions are surprisingly feeble.

27:41 Germany doesn't launch any investigations or court proceedings.

27:45 Switzerland opens a formal inquiry, but so far nothing has come of it.

27:48 Neither the BND nor the CIA has ever publicly commented on the operation.

27:53 The leaked reports reveal further explosive details.

27:56 Like many internal intelligence documents, they contain several code names.

28:00 Crypto AG is called Manurva.

28:02 The CIA is EOS and the BND becomes Gamma.

28:05 But then there are also these two code names.

28:08 Olympia and Navajo refer to two major technology companies.

28:12 German conglomerate Seammens and American multinational Motorola.

28:15 According to the Washington Post,

28:17 Seammens advised crypto on business and technical issues

28:20 and received 5% of the company's sales in return.

28:23 The US apparently brought in Motorola later on.

28:26 Cooperation between private companies

28:27 and intelligence agencies is nothing unusual.

28:30 It's even regulated by law.

28:32 German telecommunications companies are required to cooperate with law

28:36 enforcement and intelligence agencies

28:37 to facilitate interception and surveillance.

28:40 In the United States, certain types of foreign intelligence collection rely

28:44 on compelled assistance from American telecommunications companies.

28:49 Despite these leaks, many questions are still unanswered.

28:52 What information did the intelligence agencies actually intercept?

28:56 How exactly did they acquire crypto through the Likenstein Trust Company?

29:00 And what about the allegations that the BND continued intercepting

29:03 certain communications for years after formally withdrawing from the OP?

29:06 According to the ZDF report, the BND received hints about the World

29:10 Trade Center attacks before September 11, 2001.

29:14 One intercepted message allegedly contained information about the future

29:17 hijackers the BND allegedly didn't pass on in time.

29:21 Whether that information could have helped

29:22 prevent the attacks, we'll never know.

29:25 Even today, we're probably only aware of fragments

29:27 of the full operation and a fraction of its true scale.

29:31 We asked the BND for comment.

29:32 The agency told us that on principle,

29:34 it doesn't publicly comment on intelligence findings or activities.

29:39 Crypto was eventually broken up.

29:41 Two new firms took over almost the entire business.

29:43 Both emphasized they no longer have any ties to either the CIA or the BND.

29:48 Juliano A served as CEO of Sai 1 security AG until 2024.

29:53 Before that, he was the CEO of the original crypto AG.

29:57 His tenure started in 2001 and lasted through the years

30:00 the company was still secretly controlled by the CIA.

30:03 When the Washington Post broke its story,

30:05 the company issued a statement declining to comment on crypto's history.

30:09 Who knows which companies intelligence agencies are secretly working with today.

30:13 If you're at Google, you're at Microsoft,

30:15 or you're at Verizon, or a big cellular company,

30:18 and the government comes to you and says

30:20 that our ability to prevent another terror attack like 9/11

30:23 depends on whether we can figure out and trace

30:27 these these networks from al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.

30:31 And we can only do that if we can get to the data that you have.

30:34 It's hard for government for companies to turn

30:36 away the government under that kind of pressure.