!!! Overview
[{$pagename}] was a Swiss company specializing in communications and [information security] was secretly jointly owned by the American [Central Intelligence Agency] ([CIA]) and West [German Federal Intelligence Service] ([BND]) from [1970|Year 1970] until about [1993|Year 1993], with the [CIA] continuing as sole owner until about [2018|Year 2018].


[{$pagename}], with headquarters in Steinhausen, the company was a long-established manufacturer of encryption machines and a wide variety of [cipher] [devices].

[{$pagename}] has been criticized for selling backdoor products to benefit the [National Security Agency] ([NSA]), the [Government Communications Headquarters] ([GCHQ]), and the [BND] national [Signals Intelligence] agencies.

The owners of Crypto AG were unknown, supposedly even to the managers of the firm, and they held their ownership through bearer shares. On 11 February [2020|Year 2020], The Washington Post, ZDF and SRF revealed [{$pagename}] was secretly owned by the [Central Intelligence Agency].

!! More Information
There might be more information for this subject on one of the following:
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* [#1] - [Crypto_AG|Wikipedia:Crypto_AG|target='_blank'] - based on information obtained 2020-03-08 
* [#2] - [As the U.S. spied on the world, the CIA and NSA bickered|https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/as-the-us-spied-on-the-world-the-cia-and-nsa-bickered/2020/03/06/630a4e72-5365-11ea-b119-4faabac6674f_story.html|target='_blank'] - based on information obtained 2020-03-08 
* [#2] - [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence|https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence|target='_blank'] - based on information obtained 2020-03-08