The Washington Post reported the U.S. and German intelligence operations reading secret communications from 120 countries. The publication refers to the documents of the CIA and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) of Germany.
Since the 1970s, the CIA and BND have been receiving information from Crypto AG, a Swiss cryptographic equipment manufacturer.
Since 1958, the CIA, and then the BND, controlled the activities of Crypto AG through the front company, Minerva, in Liechtenstein. The Swiss authorities were aware of the US and German activities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
A question for the panic mongers who constantly talk about "American values":
IS customer fraud our national value???
It was a brilliant scheme.
And it is what spy agencies do.
Just the CIA did it better than anyone else.
Its a great read.
The only qualms I have about the program is that I am fairly certain- as noted in the article- that the U.S. became aware of some rather horrific plots by some countries that the U.S. chose to ignore. Domestic assassinations and such.