The director of a Swiss private intelligence organization is being probed for spying on European corporate, political, and media personalities at the request of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to persons familiar with the investigation.
Mario Brero, the chief executive of Geneva-based ALP Services SA, is the object of three different investigations in France and Switzerland. The corporation is accused of providing the identities of over 1,000 Europeans and 400 organizations to a Gulf customer, mostly because they were thought to have ties to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, which the UAE deems a terrorist organization.
Mediapart, a French investigative media outlet, released revelations last year accusing Brero and his agency of collaborating for Emirati intelligence agencies. Rokhaya Diallo, a French writer, filed a complaint in France about the conduct in August, prompting a criminal inquiry, according to the sources. According to AFP, Mediapart and a journalist who works there each filed a separate court lawsuit. Mediapart’s president, Carine Fouteau, stated that its journalists had been reported to the UAE as being sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mediapart handed investigators an internal ALP Services document including all names provided to the UAE. According to another person familiar with the issue, Swiss authorities began examining Brero in December after receiving complaints from government services, professor Tariq Ramadan, and Belgian Environment Minister Zakia Khattabi.
AFP was unable to receive an immediate reaction from Brero’s lawyer or UAE officials.
Between 2017 and 2020, the UAE received names from French luminaries such as Benoit Hamon, a former presidential candidate, Samia Ghali, deputy mayor of Marseille and former senator, the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, and the CNRS national scientific research institution. According to reports, the names were collected in 18 European nations, with many being incorrectly identified as Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers.
“The judiciary must investigate such methods,” said Diallo’s attorney, Vincent Brengarth.
“Not only do they imply an illegal use of personal data, they also wrongly associate Rokhaya Diallo with a group with which he has no link,” he added.
Another French inquiry was launched in October 2023 in response to a court complaint filed by Sihem Souid, a Qatari lobbyist in France, who claimed she and Qatar had been targeted by a “destabilisation operation” based on material provided by ALP Services.
Brero was sentenced in France for unlawfully gathering intelligence on the spouse of Anne Lauvergeon, the former CEO of Areva, a nuclear energy firm.
