One Global Risk Advisors document lists the United States as a “threat” to Qatar while Russia, one of the U.S.’s biggest geopolitical rivals and the host of the 2018 World Cup, was listed as an “opportunity.” President Bill Clinton and other celebrities were part of the bid effort.
The United States was Qatar’s biggest rival to win the 2022 World Cup, and former U.S. intelligence officials has not always aligned with U.S. A Reuters investigation from 2019 reported that DarkMatter hacked phones and computers of Qatar’s Emir, his brother, and FIFA officials. intelligence and military officials recently admitted to providing hacking services for a UAE-based company, which was called DarkMatter, as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department. The private surveillance business has flourished in the last decade in the Persian Gulf as the region saw the rise of an information war using state-sponsored hacking operations that have coincided with the run-up to the World Cup. All these young wealthy Qataris are playing spy games with this guy and he’s selling them,” said one former associate, who like others interviewed by the AP, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution for revealing the spying efforts of Qatar. The CIA declined to comment and does not usually discuss its former officers.Ĭhalker’s background in the CIA was attractive to Qatari officials, said former associates. Operations officers typically work undercover trying to recruit assets to spy on behalf of the United States.
His company Global Risk Advisors bills itself as “an international strategic consultancy specializing in cybersecurity, military and law enforcement training, and intelligence-based advisory services” and its affiliates have won small contracts with the FBI for a rope-training course and tech consulting work for the Democratic National Committee.Ĭhalker worked at the CIA as an operations officer for about five years, according to former associates. Chalker’s legal team has argued the lawsuit is meritless.įormer associates say Chalker’s companies have provided a variety of services to Qatar in addition to intelligence work. Broidy’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. Broidy is suing Chalker and has accused him of mounting a widespread hacking and spying campaign at Qatar’s direction that includes using former western intelligence officers to surveil FIFA officials. Many of the documents reviewed by the AP outlining work undertaken by Chalker and his companies on behalf of Qatar are also described in a lawsuit filed by Elliott Broidy, a one-time fundraiser for former U.S. Chalker did not provide to the AP any evidence to support his position that some of the documents in question had been forged. That includes confirming details of various documents with different sources, including former Chalker associates and soccer officials cross-checking contents of documents with contemporaneous news accounts and publicly available business records and examining electronic documents’ metadata, or digital history, where available, to confirm who made the documents and when. The AP took several steps to verify the documents’ authenticity. The sources said they were troubled by Chalker’s work for Qatar and requested anonymity because they feared retaliation. Multiple sources with authorized access provided documents to the AP.
The AP reviewed hundreds of pages of documents from Chalker’s companies, including a 2013 project update report that had several photos of Chalker’s staff meeting with various soccer officials. He also claimed that some of the documents reviewed by the AP were forgeries. Chalker also worked for Qatar in the years that followed to keep tabs on the country’s critics in the soccer world, the AP found.Ĭhalker declined requests for an interview or to answer detailed questions about his work for the Qatari government. The AP’s investigation found Qatar sought an edge in securing hosting rights by hiring former CIA officer turned private contractor Kevin Chalker to spy on rival bid teams and key soccer officials who picked the winner in 2010. It’s also a chance for Qatar, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, to have a coming-out party on the world stage.
The World Cup is the planet’s most popular sports tournament. intelligence officers going to work for foreign governments with questionable human rights records that is worrying officials in Washington and prompting calls from some members of Congress for greater scrutiny of an opaque and lucrative market. WASHINGTON (AP) - The tiny Arab nation of Qatar has for years employed a former CIA officer to help spy on soccer officials as part of a no-expense-spared effort to win and hold on to the 2022 World Cup tournament, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.