Saudis recruited Twitter workers to spy on users, U.S. prosecutors say

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — U.S. prosecutors say the Saudi government recruited two Twitter employees to get personal account information of their critics.

The complaint unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco detailed a coordinated effort by Saudi officials to recruit employees at the social media giant to look up the private data of thousands of Twitter accounts.

The accounts included those of a popular journalist with more than 1 million followers and other prominent government critics.

It also alleged that the employees — whose jobs did not require access to Twitter users’ private information — were rewarded with a designer watch and tens of thousands of dollars funneled into secret bank accounts.