Cambridge Analytica whistle-blower: Israeli spy firm hacked Nigeria president

The whistle-blower at the heart of the Facebook privacy scandal tells the British parliament that an Israeli intelligence gathering firm was involved in a hacking scheme targeting the president of Nigeria.

Cambridge Analytica “utilized the services of an Israeli private intelligence firm, Black Cube,” former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie tells UK lawmakers at a special hearing. “Black Cube on the Nigeria project was engaged to hack the now-president Buhari to get access to his medical records and private emails.”

Wylie alleges that Cambridge Analytica harvested details of 50 million Facebook users and used the material in US President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign by micro-targeting with campaign material.

His accusation about Black Cube appear to confirm reports from last week that Israelis from an “office in Tel Aviv” handed employees of Cambridge Analytica a USB stick containing hacked personal emails from the computers of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and Saint Kitts and Nevis politician Timothy Harris. Harris was at the time opposition leader and is now prime minister.

Cambridge Analytica was hired by a Nigerian billionaire to support the re-election of Jonathan and run a fierce campaign against his rival, opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari, The Guardian reported.

Black Cube has previously been linked to a number of controversial clients, having been hired by film producer Harvey Weinstein to suppress the publication of looming stories that he sexually harassed and assaulted scores of women, and having had two of its employees convicted in Romania of trying to intimidate the country’s crusading anti-corruption chief.