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How Saudi Arabia Infiltrated Twitter
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alexkantrowitz/how-saudi-arabia-infiltrated-twitter
“Proactive and reactively we will delete evil my brother.”
Alex Kantrowitz
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 19, 2020, at 2:42 p.m. ET
Ali Alzabarah was panicked. His heart raced as he drove home from Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters in the early evening on Dec. 2, 2015. He needed to leave the country — quickly.
Earlier that day, Twitter’s management accused the unassuming 32-year-old of accessing thousands of user profiles without authorization to pass their identifying information — including phone numbers and IP addresses — reportedly to Bader al-Asaker, the head of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s charity and private office. When the conversation concluded, management seized Alzabarah’s laptop, put him on administrative leave, and escorted him out of the building.
Arriving home at San Bruno’s Acappella Apartments — a complex so close to San Francisco International Airport he could hear planes fly overhead — Alzabarah planned his escape. At 5:17 p.m. he called a handler, identified as Associate-1 in the FBI complaint, who arrived in a white SUV two hours later. Driving around Alzabarah’s neighborhood, the two men called “Foreign Official-l” — al-Asaker, according to the Washington Post — at 7:20 p.m., and again at 7:22 p.m. and 7:31 p.m. They then called Dr. Faisal Al Sudairi, the Saudi consul general in Los Angeles, at 8:30 p.m., 8:38 p.m., and 9:26 p.m. Shortly after midnight, the consul general called Alzabarah back and spoke with him for three minutes.
Early the next morning, Alzabarah, his wife, and daughter boarded a plane for Saudi Arabia.
</snip>
“Proactive and reactively we will delete evil my brother.”
Alex Kantrowitz
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on February 19, 2020, at 2:42 p.m. ET
Ali Alzabarah was panicked. His heart raced as he drove home from Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters in the early evening on Dec. 2, 2015. He needed to leave the country — quickly.
Earlier that day, Twitter’s management accused the unassuming 32-year-old of accessing thousands of user profiles without authorization to pass their identifying information — including phone numbers and IP addresses — reportedly to Bader al-Asaker, the head of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s charity and private office. When the conversation concluded, management seized Alzabarah’s laptop, put him on administrative leave, and escorted him out of the building.
Arriving home at San Bruno’s Acappella Apartments — a complex so close to San Francisco International Airport he could hear planes fly overhead — Alzabarah planned his escape. At 5:17 p.m. he called a handler, identified as Associate-1 in the FBI complaint, who arrived in a white SUV two hours later. Driving around Alzabarah’s neighborhood, the two men called “Foreign Official-l” — al-Asaker, according to the Washington Post — at 7:20 p.m., and again at 7:22 p.m. and 7:31 p.m. They then called Dr. Faisal Al Sudairi, the Saudi consul general in Los Angeles, at 8:30 p.m., 8:38 p.m., and 9:26 p.m. Shortly after midnight, the consul general called Alzabarah back and spoke with him for three minutes.
Early the next morning, Alzabarah, his wife, and daughter boarded a plane for Saudi Arabia.
</snip>
