Discover the Best Books Written by Gavin De Becker

Gavin de Becker is an expert on the prediction and management of violence. He has served on President's Advisory Board at the U.S. Department of Justice and the Governor's Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health; he now runs a consulting firm that advises government agencies, universities, police departments, corporations, and media figures on the assessment of threats and hazards.

In March 2019, de Becker, who has worked for Jeff Bezos, accused the Saudi Arabian government of hacking Bezos' phone after the National Enquirer published a story about Bezos's extramarital affair. According to the BBC, de Becker, as Bezos' top security staffer, "linked the hack to The Washington Post's coverage of the murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul." The Daily Beast ran an op-ed in which de Becker explained the matter of the Saudi hack in detail. Journalist Brad Stone explored whether the Saudi hack was linked in any way to a National Enquirer article about Bezos having an affair.

 United Nations Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard conducted an investigation of the Saudi hack. In a public statement, she referred to information that suggested a WhatsApp account belonging to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was used to deploy digital spyware on Bezos' phone "in an effort to influence, if not silence" The Washington Post's reporting on the kingdom. A United Nations report noted that "the iPhone infiltration occurred from May to June in 2018, when the phones of Jamal Khashoggi's associates, Yahya Assiri and Omar Abdulaziz, were also hacked, allegedly using malware called Pegasus." 

The UN experts stated: "During the same period, Mr. Bezos was widely targeted in Saudi social media as an alleged adversary of the Kingdom. This was part of a massive, clandestine online campaign against Mr. Bezos and Amazon, apparently targeting him principally as the owner of The Washington Post."