Former Twitter Employees Charged with Spying for Saudi Arabia
I wonder if this is in addition to or was part of the McKinsey scandal where they targeted Saudi dissidents on Twitter for Saudi Arabia [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if getting people on the inside like this was part of it though just conjecture.<p>> <i>Role in Saudi clampdown on dissidents</i><p>> <i>In October 2018, in the wake of the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and journalist, The New York Times reported that McKinsey had identified the most prominent Saudi dissidents on Twitter and that the Saudi government subsequently repressed the dissidents and their families. One of the dissidents was arrested. Another dissident's family members were arrested, and the cell phone of the dissident was hacked. McKinsey issued a statement, saying "We are horrified by the possibility, however remote, that [the report] could have been misused. We have seen no evidence to suggest that it was misused, but we are urgently investigating how and with whom the document was shared." In December 2018, The New York Times reported that "the kingdom is a such a vital client for the firm — the source of nearly 600 projects from 2011 to 2016 alone — that McKinsey chose to participate in a major Saudi investment conference in October 2018 even after the killing and dismemberment of a Washington Post columnist by Saudi agents."</i> [1]<p>> <i>On the 12th of February 2019, the European Parliament Greens/EFA group presented a motion for a resolution on the situation on women’s rights defenders in Saudi Arabia denouncing the involvement of foreign public relations companies in representing Saudi Arabia and handling its public image namely McKinsey & Company.</i> [1]<p>McKinsey also supports authoritarian regimes if they ask for reports and have the money.<p>> <i>Support of authoritarian regimes</i> [1]<p>> <i>McKinsey's business and policy support for authoritarian regimes came under scrutiny in December 2018, in the wake of a lavish company retreat in China held adjacent to Chinese government internment camps where thousands of Uyghurs were being detained without cause. In the preceding few years, McKinsey's clients included Saudi Arabia's absolute monarchy, Turkey's autocratic leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ousted former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, and several Chinese and Russian companies under sanctions.</i> [1]<p>McKinsey one of the Big Three management consulting firms [4] is widely used to use plausible deniability for private equity leveraged buyouts and corruption like the Enron scandals. [2]<p>> <i>Enron was the creation of Jeff Skilling, a McKinsey consultant of 21 years, who was jailed after the company collapsed. McKinsey reportedly "fully endorsed the dubious accounting methods that caused the company to implode in 2001." Enron reportedly used McKinsey on 20 different projects, and McKinsey consultants had "used Enron as their sandbox."</i><p>McKinsey was also a big part of the plausible deniability for big banks and funds during the Great Recession. [3]. Very questionable ethics at McKinsey, hard to trust anyone from there.<p>> <i>McKinsey is said to have played a significant role in the 2008 financial crisis by promoting the securitization of mortgage assets and encouraged the banks to fund their balance sheets with debt, driving up risk, which 'poisoned the global financial system and precipitated the 2008 credit meltdown'. Furthermore, McKinsey advised Allstate Insurance to purposefully give low offers to claimants. The Huffington Post revealed that the strategy was to make claims "so expensive and so time-consuming that lawyers would start refusing to help clients." Next to this, 2016 McKinsey partner Navdeep Arora was convicted for illegally depleting State Farm of over $500,000 over a period of 8 years, in collaboration with a State Farm employee.</i><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Role_in_Saudi_clampdown_on_dissidents" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Role_in_S...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Role_in_corporate_accounting_scandals" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#Role_in_c...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#2008_financial_crisis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company#2008_fina...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(management_consultancies)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(management_consulta...</a>