Ex-Twitter employee Gets 3.5 Years Jail for Spying on Behalf of Saudi Arabia

Dec 16, 2022Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Privacy

A former Twitter employee who was found guilty of spying on
behalf of Saudi Arabia by sharing data pertaining to specific
individuals has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in
prison.

Ahmad Abouammo, 45, was convicted earlier this August^[1]
on various criminal counts, including money laundering, fraud,
falsifying records, and being an illegal agent of a foreign
government.

Abouammo was arrested on November 5, 2019, after being accused
of abusing his access to Twitter’s internal systems to gather
information about Saudi Arabia’s critics on the social media
platform. He was employed at Twitter from 2013 to 2015.

“Mr. Abouammo violated the trust placed on him to protect the
privacy of individuals by giving their personal information to a
foreign power for profit,” said^[2]
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice
Department’s National Security Division.

“His conduct was made all the more egregious by the fact that
the information was intended to target political dissidents
speaking out against that foreign power.”

Evidence presented during the August trial revealed that
Abouammo, who worked as a Media Partnerships Manager for the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA) region, received cash from the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia in return for conveying identifying information
related to its dissidents and critics, potentially exposing them to
persecution.

A bank account opened by Abouammo in the name of his father in
Lebanon was credited with $200,000 in two transfers, half of which
was laundered in the form of small wire transfers to the U.S. with
false descriptions. He also received a luxury watch that was
subsequently sold on Craigslist for $42,000.

As part of the sentencing, Abouammo has also been ordered to
forfeit $242,000 and surrender on March 31, 2023, to begin the jail
term.

Another ex-Twitter employee, Ali Alzabarah, who has also been
accused of acquiring private information on accounts that were
critical of the regime, fled the U.S. in December 2015 before being
charged.

The development comes as Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, Twitter’s former
head of security, blew the whistle^[3]
on serious security failings at the company, in addition to
alleging that Chinese^[4]
and Indian governments^[5]
had forced the firm to hire one of their agents, and likely had
access to sensitive user data.