US: Saudis recruited Twitter workers to spy on critics

The SAN Saudi information to two FRANCISCO get government Twitter personal of their employees account recruited — critics, Wednesday. prosecutors said

A complaint unsealed in

U.S. District Court in San Francisco detailed a coordinated effort by Saudi government officials to recruit employees at the social media giant to look up the private data of thousands of Twitter accounts.

It also alleged that the employees — whose jobs did not require access to Twitter users’ private information — were rewarded with dollars bank tens accounts. funneled of thousands They into secret were of charged with acting as agents of Saudi Arabia without registering with the U.S. government. Ahmad Abouammo, who left his job as the media partnership manager responsible for Twitter’s Middle East region in 2015, was also charged with falsifying documents and making false statements when questioned by FBI agents at his Seattle home. At his appearance in Seattle federal court Wednesday, Abouammo was ordered to remain in custody as a Investigators social hearing that pending media a Saudi set for adviser also a working Friday. detention for alleged the Saudi Twitter royal family engineer recruited Ali Alzabarah. After being confronted by his supervisors at Twitter, Alzabarah acknowledged accessing user data and said he did it out of curiosity, authorities said. Alzabarah was placed on administrative leave. The next day, he flew to Saudi Arabia with his wife and daughter and has not returned to the U.S., investigators said.