Former Twitter Employee Gets 42 Months for Saudi Scheme

A former Twitter employee has been handed a jail sentence of over three years after accepting bribes from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in return for accessing dissidents’ accounts.

Ahmad Abouammo, 45, formerly of Walnut Creek, was convicted in August of acting as a foreign agent without notice to the attorney general, conspiracy, wire fraud, international money laundering and falsification of records in a federal investigation.

As Twitter’s media partnership manager for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, he began receiving bribes from the KSA in 2014, according to the Department of Justice (DoJ).

After meeting a foreign KSA official in London that year, and receiving a $42,000 Hublot watch, Abouammo repeatedly accessed private information about several Twitter accounts belonging to dissidents and critics of the Saudi royal family.

He also opened a bank account in Lebanon in the name of his father. The account received $100,000 in February 2015, which Abouammo effectively laundered by sending the money to the US in small amounts that were mislabelled, the DoJ said. The account apparently received another $100,000 after Abouammo left Twitter for another job.

Abouammo is also said to have lied to FBI investigators and falsified a document when questioned about the transactions in October 2018.

“This case revealed that foreign governments, here, the KSA will bribe insiders to obtain the user information that is collected and stored by our Silicon Valley social media companies,” said US attorney Stephanie Hinds.

“In handing down today’s sentence, the court emphasized that the defendant shared user information with a foreign government known for not tolerating dissidents, and he did so while working with his even more culpable co-defendant who fled to the KSA rather than face trial. This sentence sends a message to insiders with access to user information to safeguard it, particularly from repressive regimes, or risk significant time in prison.”

That co-defendant is believed to be Saudi national Ali Alzabarah, who worked as a site reliability engineer for Twitter.