ICYMI – Former Twitter media partnership manager Ahmad Abouammo was sentenced to spend the next three-and-a-half years in a U.S. federal prison. He was found guilty back in August of “accepting bribes from a Saudi Arabian official in exchange for providing the kingdom with user information from the platform.” The doxxing of Elon Musk’s flight information pales in comparison to the user info Abouammo peddled to Crown Prince “Happy Cat” Mohammed bin Salman.
Sentenced to 42 months prison
Now that Ahmad Abouammo has been sentenced to a 42 month stay in the grey bar hotel, the media decided to let the public in on his story. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was probably grinning from ear-to-ear, as usual, when he saw the information handed over by Abouammo.
Torture and murder are culturally accepted ways of doing business to the Arabs. They have lots and lots of money to buy information with. Abouammo had a price and easy terms were soon arranged.
The crimes he was sentenced for on Thursday, December 15, were only a few of many he was charged with. Most of them didn’t stick but the ones which did will keep Abouammo out of circulation for a good while. He had a promising gig as a media partnership manager for Twitter’s Middle East and North Africa region.
Twitter employee Ahmad Abouammo accepted bribes from Saudis, gave them private user info https://t.co/5okLBrikPU pic.twitter.com/0Jt3U94w7l
— Robert Spencer روبرت سبنسر रॉबर्ट स्पेंसर 🇺🇸 (@jihadwatchRS) August 13, 2022
As part of his duties, he “met with a close adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on multiple occasions.” That led to a little “arrangement.” He was convicted of “accepting thousands of dollars worth of gifts as he provided information about Saudi dissidents’ Twitter accounts”
The jury found him “guilty of acting as a foreign agent without notice, money laundering and falsifying records as well as wire fraud and honest services fraud.” He managed to avoid being sentenced for “five other counts of wire fraud and honest services fraud.”
According to U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds, this case “revealed that foreign governments will bribe insiders to obtain the user information that is collected and stored by our Silicon Valley social media companies.” No bleep. Everyone knows that. The surprising part is how much was sold before it was caught.
Partner got away
While Hinds was busy taking her victory lap on the Abouammo case, she let slip that he was really small potatoes compared to the one who got away.
“In handing down today’s sentence, the Court emphasized that defendant shared the user information with a foreign government known for not tolerating dissidents, and he did so working with his even more culpable co-defendant who fled the country rather than face trial.” The leaking rats practically sentenced people to death by torture.
In exchange for turning over personal information to round up dissidents, “Abouammo received a Hublot watch that he later said was valued at $42,000.” He was sentenced to a month per thousand but that’s only a coincidence.
Saudi Prince Slaps Joe Biden With Jihad Threat https://t.co/elJEwGOwyD via @Deep State Rabbit Hole
— Kilgore Trout (@Kilgore73862013) October 20, 2022
He also got at least one payment of $100,000 cash. He got into a big jam for “laundering” it. Days after he got the watch, he “sent the Saudi adviser a dossier on the account of a Saudi dissident who tweets about alleged corruption in the kingdom’s royal family under a pseudonym.”
“Mr. Abouammo violated the trust placed on him to protect the privacy of individuals living in the U.S. by giving their personal information to a foreign power for profit,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said after he had been sentenced.
After the London meeting, court documents show “Abouammo proceeded to access private information about other Twitter accounts and communicate with the Saudi official.“