Abu Dhabi Secrets

Abu Dhabi Secrets is an international investigation series revealing the United Arab Emirates’ influence strategy in Europe, particularly in France, by financing a "smear campaign" to target opponents of the UAE, that is, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The investigation is based on confidential documents obtained through a hack into a Swiss-based economic intelligence company, Alp Services by Mario Brero which executed the smear campaign. The documents were obtained by Mediapart and analyzed by with the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) media network.

Background
In early 2017, when tensions between the United Arab Emirates and Qatar intensified, a former French journalist and a successful special affairs consultant, Roland Jacquard mediated between Alp Services and the UAE government. Jacquard, who became a self-proclaimed expert on Islamist radicalism, recommended the founder of Alp Services, Mario Brero, to the Emiratis. The contract was being supervised by an Emirati spy, Sheikh Matar. Jacquard was entitled to 10% of the payments, but Brero missed paying him commission for certain missions. As part of his Emirati contract, the Frenchman received at least 300,000 euros, which could not be assessed with precision due to the atypical nature of the financial transactions.

For secure communication, Mario Brero created two anonymous email accounts using the ProtonMail encrypted messaging system. Among the two accounts, one was created for Alp Services and the other for Sheikh Matar. Hackers were able to get access to the Emirati agent’s emails using the credentials that the Emirati had asked Brero to send via WhatsApp on 2 October 2017.

Sheikh Matar used Mario Brero’s services for at least four years. The two met discreetly on various occasion in Switzerland and Abu Dhabi. In one of the meetings at the Baur au Lac Hotel in Zürich, Matar was accompanied by his superior referred to as “His Excellency” or “Ali” in the leaked documents. The superior was identified as Ali Saeed al-Neyadi, a ministerial level aide to the Emirati royal, Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Between 21 August 2017 and 30 June 2020, Alp Services received at least 5.7 million euros from the Emirates. The payments made by an Emirati enterprise called Ariaf Studies and Research. However, according to Alp Services’ files, the bills went to the UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Reactions
Sihem Souid, a Qatari lobbyist in France, filed a complaint against Alp Services and Mario Brero in March 2023. She accused them of invasion of privacy, home invasion, attack on the secrecy of correspondence, and theft. She claimed she was the victim of "a destabilization enterprise" that would target Qatar on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.

Belgium requested full explanations and clarifications from the United Arab Emirates ambassador in Brussels on 7 July 2023, and Belgian authorities registered official protests on 9 July against a defamation campaign by the UAE against officials in Brussels.

The details of “Abu Dhabi Secrets” were also mentioned in a lawsuit filed against the George Washington University, its Program on Extremism, and the research’s head Lorenzo Vidino by an academic researcher in Austria, Farid Hafez. He was targeted by the organized smear campaign, facing raids and seizures under the “Operation Luxor”. Hafez was among those targeted and falsely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood by Alp Services and Vidino. The lawsuit stated that Vidino acknowledged the payments he received from Alp were coming from the UAE, which might have partly motivated Vidino’s advocacy.

Based on the “Abu Dhabi Secrets” investigation, three legal investigations were opened by French and Swiss prosecutors targeting Alp Services and Mario Brero. The journalist, author and director, Rokhaya Diallo filed a complaint for “illicit collection, processing and disclosure of personal data”, after she was associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2023, following Diallo’s complaint, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation targeting Alp. Following the “Abu Dhabi Secrets”, on December 2023, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor's Office (MPC) brought together several open procedures into a single investigation, suspecting Mario Brero and his associate Muriel Cavin of committing six crimes. The investigation revealed that an Emirati research center, Al Ariaf, was paying Alp Services. Besides, Brero and Cavin also had fictitious employment contract with Al Ariaf. A third legal complaint against Alp was filed in Washington by Farid Hafez.