Ex-Twitter worker sentenced for taking bribes to observe ‘customers of curiosity’ to Saudi royal household

A former Twitter worker who accessed the confidential knowledge of “users of interest” to the royal household of Saudi Arabia in change for bribes was sentenced Thursday to 3 and a half years in federal jail.

Ahmad Abouammo, 45, was convicted in August of appearing as an unregistered agent of a overseas authorities, worldwide cash laundering and falsification of information in a federal investigation, in accordance with the U.S. lawyer’s workplace for the Northern District of California. He was acquitted of a number of wire fraud and trustworthy companies fraud expenses.

“This case revealed that foreign governments will bribe insiders to obtain the user information that is collected and stored by our Silicon Valley social media companies,” U.S. Atty. Stephanie M. Hinds stated in a launch.

Abouammo, previously of Walnut Creek, Calif., and later a Seattle resident, had been employed with Twitter as a media partnerships supervisor for the Middle East and North Africa.

Beginning in late 2014, he started receiving bribes from a Saudi official in change for accessing and offering knowledge about Twitter customers who had been dissidents and critics of the nation, officers stated.

Saudi Arabia has handed down decades-long jail sentences over feedback on social media in its crackdown on dissent, drawing widespread backlash over human rights abuses — particularly after Saudi safety brokers in 2018 killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who had written critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Federal prosecutors stated the Saudi official who met with Abouammo gave him a luxurious Hublot watch in London in December 2014. Abouammo then supplied the watch on the market on Craigslist for $42,000.

After the assembly, Abouammo started repeatedly accessing info from Twitter accounts, “at least one of which was the account of an influential user who was critical of members of the Saudi Royal Family and the KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] government,” prosecutors wrote.

The official who met with Abouammo was the “head of a ‘private office’ of a royal family member” who was a minister of state on the time and went on to grow to be the minister of protection and deputy crown prince, prosecutors stated.

After the assembly in London, Abouammo continued to speak with the Saudi official concerning the “influential critical account” and others, in accordance with the U.S. lawyer’s workplace.

In 2015, a checking account was opened in Lebanon within the title of Abouammo’s father shortly after Abouammo had traveled there. The account then acquired a deposit of $100,000 from the Saudi official.

“Abouammo laundered the money by sending it into the United States in small wire transfers with false descriptions,” prosecutors stated.

Another $100,000 was deposited into the account shortly after Abouammo left Twitter.

When questioned by the FBI concerning the transactions, Abouammo supplied a pretend bill for one of many funds, prosecutors stated.

Abouammo was arrested in November 2019.

“Mr. Abouammo violated the trust placed on him to protect the privacy of individuals living in the U.S. by giving their personal information to a foreign power for profit,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division stated within the launch.