For decades, one of the world's leading encryption companies was jointly owned by the CIA and the BND (German intelligence)

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

‘The intelligence coup of the century’ (Washington Post)

Quote

From 1970 on, the CIA and its code-breaking sibling, the National Security Agency, controlled nearly every aspect of Crypto’s operations — presiding with their German partners over hiring decisions, designing its technology, sabotaging its algorithms and directing its sales targets.

 

Then, the U.S. and West German spies sat back and listened.

 

They monitored Iran’s mullahs during the 1979 hostage crisis, fed intelligence about Argentina’s military to Britain during the Falklands War, tracked the assassination campaigns of South American dictators and caught Libyan officials congratulating themselves on the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco.