You don't need to resort to spooky forces to imagine why Apple wants to deny an attack on their security. It damages the value of the company, especially in a time when they try to market themselves as security conscious.
For Apple to believe that they could get away with outright bare faced lying about this, they would have to be very confident none of those people across dozens of ogrganisations would either break ranks or mistakenly corroborate the story, and none of the copious physical evidence would ever be found.
The question is, do you believe that’s the sort of risk they are likely to take?