Tag Archive for: spy

Ex-Twitter Manager Slapped With Three-Year Prison Sentence For Spying For Saudi Arabia

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A former manager at Twitter, convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison on Wednesday, U.S. prosecutors said.

Ahmad Abouammo, who provided a Saudi official with user information in exchange for a $42,000 watch and a pair of $100,000 wire transfers, received 3.5 years in prison despite prosecutors originally pushing for seven years, according to Reuters. Abouammo was found guilty of spying and money laundering on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government, and using his position at Twitter to acquire information about Twitter users for the Saudi Royal Family in August.

The max sentencing was up to “decades” in prison, but prosecutors were pushing for seven years to “deter others in the technology and social media industry from selling out the data of vulnerable users,” according to Reuters. Abouammo’s attorneys requested a probationary sentence at his home in Seattle with no prison time.

During the August trial, prosecutor Eric Cheng said “they paid for a mole” during his closing argument, noting that Abouammo was paid in bribes three times his salary. “We all know that kind of money is not for nothing,” he said.

Abuoammo managed media for high-profile users in the Middle East and North Africa for Twitter. Abuoammo was arrested in 2019 in Seattle, but was set free on bail until the trial in San Francisco.

Abuoammo’s attorneys noted that he was dealing with financial trouble while at Twitter, saying that he had been “struggling to pay for and deal with serious upheavals in his sister’s life,” which included medical care for her newborn daughter, according to Reuters.

AUTHOR

BRONSON WINSLOW

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Muslim U.S. Air Force Intelligence Specialist tried to pass classified American information to Iran

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But if anyone had questioned her loyalty, he or she would have been denounced as a racist, bigoted “Islamophobe.”


Monica Elfriede Witt (a.k.a.
Fatemah Zahra)

“Iran Conducted Cyber Hacks on U.S., Recruited U.S. Air Force Officer to Steal Classified Info,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, February 13, 2019:

WARSAW, Poland—The Trump administration announced a new package of sanctions on Iranian entities tied to the cyber backing of U.S. individuals, a move that comes on the heels of American authorities indicting a U.S. Air Force officer who allegedly tried to pass classified information to Tehran after defecting to the country.

The Department of Justice announced early Wednesday that it had indicted Monica Elfriede Witt, also known as Fatemah Zahra, a former active duty U.S. Air Force Intelligence Specialist and Special Agent, for attempting to pass classified American information to Iran.

Witt had access to secret and top-secret information, according to the indictment, unsealed early Wednesday.

Witt was deployed to several overseas location to conduct “classified missions collecting signals intelligence,” including those of adversaries.

Witt had access to “classified information, including details of ongoing counterintelligence operations, true names of sources, and the identities of U.S. agents involved in the recruitment of those sources,” according to the indictment.

“In or around January 2012 to in or around May 2015, in Iran, and elsewhere outside the jurisdiction of any particular State or district, defendant [Witt] did knowingly and unlawfully combine, confederate, and agree with other persons, both known and unknown to the grand jury, including officers of the IRGC, to knowingly and unlawfully communicate, deliver, and transmit to a foreign government, specifically Iran, and to that foreign government’s representatives, officers, and agents, directly and indirectly, documents and information relating to the national defense of the United States, with the intent and reason to believe that the same would be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of Iran, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 794(a),” the indictment alleges.

The disclosure of this information leak was timed to coincide with an announcement by the Treasury Department that it is sanctioning a handful of Iranian entities for their role in cyber hacks on Americans.

The sanctions hit an Iranian-based entity tied to the country’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, or IRGC. This includes “efforts to recruit and collect intelligence from foreign attendees [of various conferences], including U.S. persons, and four associated individuals,” according to the Treasury Department.

Sanctions also were leveled on “a separate Iran-based entity and six associated individuals involved in the targeting of current and former U.S. government and military personnel as part of a malicious cyber campaign to gain access to and implant malware on their computer systems.”…

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