SPY GAMES

Twitter Allows Saudi Official to Keep Verified Account Despite Spy Claims

A U.S. jury convicted an employee in connection to the plot believed to be led by Bader al-Asaker.

A recent U.S. conviction of a Twitter employee connected to an international privacy breach has raised new concerns about a senior Saudi official who has been allowed by Twitter to keep his verified account. Bader al-Asaker, who has 2 million followers and is chief of staff to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is believed to be at the center of a 2015 conspiracy to harvest private user data from the network, using Twitter employees to mine information and allegedly prosecute Saudi citizens criticizing the government, according to a related July 2020 indictment. One of those Twitter employees, Ahmed Saad M Almutairi, is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for stealing data including “email addresses, telephone numbers and internet protocol addresses.” A U.S. jury convicted another Twitter employee, Ahmad Abouammo, on Tuesday for involvement in the same scheme.