Ahmad Abouammo was sentenced to three and a half years in prison after being found guilty of espionage for Saudi Arabia. During his time as a media partnerships manager for the Middle East and North Africa, Ahmad Abouammo was able to access personal information of users critical of the Saudi government and pass it on to Saudi officials.
A Saudi official gave Abouammo a $42,000 watch and two $100,000 wire transfers. He looked up the phone numbers and birthdates of the two people he looked up. According to testimony from an FBI agent, after leaving the company, Abouammo continued to try to influence the social network to verify Saudi accounts.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars were sent in wire transfers.
In August this year, Abouammo was found guilty of a number of charges, including being an agent of a foreign government. He was accused of accessing thousands of accounts for the Saudi government along with another person. Ali Alzabarah left the US to face charges.
Saudi Arabia gives severe punishments for posting on social media. One Saudi citizen was sentenced to 34 years in prison for using social media to protest the government.
High profile politicians, celebrities, and business people use the service on a daily basis, and the case shows how sensitive the information is.
Peiter 'Mudge' Zatko, the former security chief of the social networking site, said that the Saudi regime may not be the only foreign government to have tried to get in. The company was unable to establish the extent to which it may have been compromised after he claimed that the Indian and Chinese governments had embedded agents in the company. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that they didn't have the ability to expel foreign intelligence agents on their own.
The Kingdom Holding Company and the private office of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal claim to be the second and third largest investors in the company. The US government is looking into whether Musk's foreign investment partners can see users' private data.
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