CIA apparently owned a second Swiss company

Infoguard AG in Baar is one of the major players on the Swiss IT security market. Documents show that, from 2002 to 2018, the secret owner of the company was probably the American foreign intelligence agency CIA.

UBS, Credit Suisse, Sunrise, many cantonal authorities: They all trust or trusted the IT company Infoguard AG, based in Baar ZG, for the security of their sensitive data. Documents from the commercial register in Zug now show: through its complex holding structure, Infoguard presumably belonged to the American foreign intelligence agency CIA from 2002 to 2018. Specifically, the owner of Infoguard was a Liechtenstein company; through this company, the secret service controlled the now notorious Crypto AG, which sold manipulated cryptographic devices to over a hundred countries for decades.

Infoguard is one of the most important players in the Swiss IT security market. The profitable company with 150 employees protects numerous operators of critical infrastructure, and recently received an order from the power grid operator Swissgrid. Half of the Swiss financial centre relies on the company.

Despite the sensitive nature of its work, Infoguard had never been willing to shed light on the history of its owner. In mid-February, the company merely wrote that Infoguard was an "independent sister company" of Crypto AG. "Infoguard has and had no relationship with intelligence agencies." No concrete answer was given to the question of whom the company had belonged to up to 2018.

Now the fog has cleared: The company started operating in its current form in 2001; 100 percent of its shares went to a holding company called The Crypto Group AG, which was founded by former board members of Crypto AG. Shortly thereafter, in January 2002, The Crypto Group also acquired all of Crypto AG's shares. At the same time, the owner of “The Crypto Group” became a mailbox company based at a discreet law firm in Vaduz, the “Anstalt Europäische Handelsgesellschaft (European Trade Company)”.

The leaked CIA documents show that the CIA once controlled Crypto AG through this Liechtenstein company. It even had its own code name: "AEH (note: Anstalt Europäische Handelsgesellschaft), while the holding company that owned Crypto was called GOLF," says a document extract published by the Washington Post.

There is written evidence of the CIA ownership of the Liechtenstein company for the period up to the turn of the millennium. According to consistent reports from Washington Post, ZDF and SRF, Crypto AG indirectly belonged to the US secret service until 2018. The media base this belief on “interviews with several former and current intelligence officials”. The CIA paper states: Operation Minerva, as the Crypto ownership was known by the secret services, was “alive and well at the turn of the century”. Infoguard went into operation just a year later. As Crypto had the same owner as Infoguard until January 2018, the CIA must have also owned Infoguard by then.

View of the ‘Cyber Defence Centre’ of Infoguard AG. The company, which has 150 employees, is supposed to protect the sensitive data of several large companies.

"The Crypto Group", which belonged to the CIA front company, pumped CHF 9.1 million into Infoguard until 2003 in the form of a loan. This is evident from the records deposited at the commercial register. Infoguard never really repaid the debts, but redeemed them with newly issued shares through a capital increase.

According to the secret service documents, the CIA repeatedly poured millions into Crypto AG In the 1990s. But where did the ten million for Infoguard come from in 2003? Infoguard does not want to say anything about its holding. And Robert Schlup, the liquidator of “The Crypto Group”, says: “We do not comment on the internal financing of the business.” The Liechtenstein law firm, which manages the mailbox company, did not respond to a request.

When specifically asked, Infoguard does not deny that the company was owned by the CIA from 2002 to 2018. “Infoguard AG had no knowledge of this. According to our information, Infoguard AG belonged to The Crypto Group AG, whose shareholder was the European Trading Company. We didn't know more.” The company reiterates the statement that it has or had no relationship with intelligence agencies. "There were no dependencies and there was never any influence on management personnel or employees." And: "The ownership structure at that time was in no way relevant to the way the business of Infoguard AG was managed strategically and operationally."

The business lawyer Robert Schlup was the last president of former Crypto, and was on the board of Infoguard for 19 years from 2000. On request, his spokesman wrote that the documents cited in the media covered events up to the mid-1990s. "Any statements made by the media are speculations." He did not work for the company until later and, based on his own files, had no knowledge that the Liechtenstein letterbox company "was owned by the CIA and the BND until 2018".

Infoguard still does not communicate transparently. The company repeated in a statement that it was "physically and spatially" separated from Crypto. However: All Infoguard board meetings, the minutes of which are available from CH Media, took place in the offices of Crypto AG during the period in question. Most recently on January 10, 2018. "The locations at which VR meetings were held are (...) irrelevant and had no impact on the activities and development of the company," replies Infoguard. The minutes of Crypto show, however, that the interests of Infoguard AG were discussed at Crypto board meetings. The company again says: "After the relaunch in 2001, the board meetings of Infoguard AG, regardless of location, always took place separately from Crypto AG and with different members".

This statement is misleading. Again and again, Crypto AG representatives attended Infoguard board meetings. The Crypto people even had their own heading on the presence list. Faced with this, Infoguard provides an explanation: The statement was correct because it did not rule out “that people from the former Crypto AG were also present as guests”.

Up to now, there are no indications that the systems distributed by Infoguard were manipulated. The company writes that it is clear from the sources cited in the media that Crypto AG “neither Switzerland nor local companies were the focus of the intelligence activities - and were always provided with the highest security”. Infoguard never developed its own encryption methods. The solutions sold were based on an internationally recognised standard algorithm.

One last thing in common with Crypto AG
There is a flaw at the very beginning of Infoguard's story. It was originally founded in 1988 - as a spin-off from Crypto AG's private customer business. This is how Jürg Spörndli, then technical director at Infoguard, tells it. Spörndli, who spoke publicly about the manipulations at Crypto AG, also says: "In my time, Infoguard was clean."

Crypto owned 51 percent of the company. The remaining shares were held by the Swiss telecommunications company Ascom, which sold its stake to Crypto in 1991. Infoguard remained registered as an empty shell in the commercial register. Until 2001, when The Crypto Group and the alleged CIA cover company, Anstalt Europäische Handelsgesellschaft, came on the scene.

The indirect, suspected CIA ownership came to an end In January 2018. The managers made a last, striking commonality with the ostracised Crypto: Both companies were bought by their respective management – and the deals were announced only one day apart from each other.