US hacker mercenaries face charges for working for UAE

Three former US intelligence operatives, who went to work as mercenary hackers for the United Arab Emirates, face federal charges by the US Justice Department, according to a court docket created yesterday.

Reuters reported the three men, Marc Baier, Ryan Adams, and Daniel Gericke, were part of a clandestine unit named Project Raven that helped the United Arab Emirates spy on its enemies.

According to reports from 2019, the American hackers helped the UAE spy on a BBC host, the chairman of Al Jazeera and other prominent Arab media figures during a tense 2017 confrontation pitting the UAE and its allies against the Gulf state of Qatar.

The nature of the charges was not immediately clear.

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