A project called “Falconeye” was described as a plan to use drones to provide surveillance of ports and borders operations, as well as “controlling migrant worker populations centers.” They included “Pickaxe,” which promised to capture “personal information and biometrics” of migrants working in Qatar.
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The full scope of Chalker’s work for Qatar is unclear but the AP reviewed a variety of projects Global Risk Advisors proposed between 20 show proposals not just directly related to the World Cup. He certainly wouldn’t need consultants to assist with that relationship.” In a 2013 document, Global Risk Advisors recommended the Qataris give money to one a soccer development organization run by Ali, saying it would “help solidify Qatar’s reputation as a benevolent presence in world football.”Ī representative for Ali said the prince “has always had a direct good personal relationship with Qatar’s rulers. It’s unclear how much the Qataris ultimately paid the company.Ĭompany documents also highlight the company’s efforts to win over Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, a key figure in the soccer world and who ran unsuccessfully to be FIFA’s president in 20. “The greatest achievement to date of Project MERCILESS … have come from successful penetration operations targeting vocal critics inside the FIFA organization,” Chalker’s company, Global Risk Advisors, said in one 2014 document describing a project whose minimum proposed budget was listed at $387 million over nine years. Operatives working for Chalker and the Persian Gulf sheikhdom also sought cell phone call logs of at least one top FIFA official ahead of the 2010 vote, the records show.
The surveillance work included having someone pose as a photojournalist to keep tabs on a rival nation’s bid and deploying a Facebook honeypot, in which someone posed online as an attractive woman, to get close to a target, a review of the records show. The AP’s investigation shows Qatar left little to chance. It’s also a chance for Qatar, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, to have a coming-out party on the world stage. The World Cup is the planet’s most popular sports tournament. “The amount of temptation there is immense, and it invariably entangles Americans in stuff we should not be entangled.” “There’s so much Gulf money flowing through Washington D.C.,” said Congressman Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey. intelligence officers going to work for foreign governments with questionable human rights records that is worrying officials in Washington.
Chalker also worked for Qatar in the years that followed to keep tabs on Qatar’s critics in the soccer world, according to interviews with Chalker’s former associates as well as contracts, invoices, emails, and a review of business documents.