Washington: The investigator hired to look into the release of intimate images of Jeff Bezos said Sunday he has concluded that Saudi Arabian authorities hacked the Amazon chief’s phone to access his personal data. Gavin de Becker linked the hack to extensive coverage by The Washington Post newspaper, which is owned by Bezos, of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul last year.
“Our investigators and several experts concluded with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos’ phone, and gained private information,” de Becker wrote on The Daily Beast website. He said while the brother of Bezos’s mistress was paid by the National Enquirer scandal sheet for the release of the information, his role may have been a red herring, the plot went far beyond a man seeking to cash in.
The results, he wrote, “have been turned over to federal officials.” Bezos hired Gavin de Becker & Asso to find out how his intimate messages and pics made their way into the hands of the Enquirer, which reported on the Amazon chief’s extramarital affair, leading to his divorce.
