On the third floor of a brown, inauspicious flat-roofed building in Geneva’s Rue de Montchoisy, employees of a private detective agency are planning to launch a character assassination. Their firm, though, isn’t just focusing on individual people, but on an entire country.

The company’s name: Alp Services.

It’s commodity: spying and smear campaigns.

It’s clients: politicians, oligarchs, countries.

It’s target in this case: Qatar.

The company’s contractor is the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar’s neighbor and long-time rival, and Alp Services has been asked to identify people and organizations that have links to Qatar and insinuate that they are involved in Islamism and terrorism. Facts are beside the point. Alp Services focuses much of its attention on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Created in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood is a global movement dedicated to political Islam, with the goal of establishing a state based on Islamic principles. Qatar supports and offers sanctuary to members of the Muslim Brotherhood from countries like Syria, Egypt and Yemen in addition to granting them airtime on the Qatar-based media empire Al Jazeera and projecting the country’s influence in the region. The Muslim Brotherhood chapter in the UAE was once the best organized opposition group in the country, before its members began disappearing into prisons or exile. UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed (or "MBZ" as he is frequently referred to) banned the Muslim Brotherhood following the Arab Spring – and has apparently made his animosity toward the group into his life’s work.

Alp Services is one of his tools. The office on Rue de Montchoisy employs researchers, PR experts and lobbyists. They call themselves a "private global public affairs and business advisory firm." But the Swiss company’s approach to its operations, some of which have also taken place in Germany, is now coming out because recently, it apparently became the target of unknown assailants itself. In 2021, those assailants appear to have managed to steal around 3 terabytes of data from the agency’s servers. Some of that data was shared with the French investigative portal Mediapart, which they then shared with European Investigative Collaborations (EIC). DER SPIEGEL is among the founding members of the journalist network and examined the data together with journalists from Europe and the Middle East.

The First Victim

The data leak makes it clear how the United Arab Emirates seeks to influence media and politics in Europe and how vigorously the country is seeking to push its interests. And it shows how an increasing number of private intelligence companies rely on dubious research methods to assert the interests of governments without having to bear any responsibility.

In the process, German politicians, too, have become unwitting helpers to a country that has displayed little interest in upholding human rights.

In 2018, Hazim Nada found himself standing before the shattered remnants of his company. During the previous months, reports had emerged alleging that Nada had close ties to terrorists, and they even speculated that he might be providing financial backing to extremists. He suspected that direct competitors were behind the character assassination.

Now 40 years old, it has become clear to Nada that he was, in fact, the first victim of UAE and Alp Services. His father is from Egypt and was once a well-known member of the Muslim Brotherhood. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, he ended up on a U.S. sanctions list for allegedly financing terrorist activities. The accusations could not ultimately be proven, and the sanctions were lifted years later. Nada junior says he was never particularly interested in politics, is not a member of the Brotherhood and doesn’t identify with the group’s values. Such is the story he tells in his villa in northern Italy, with the cloud-covered Lake Como in the distance. Prior to the attack by Alp Services, he earned his money primarily in the crude oil trade. Today, Nada’s new company, AEHRA, is seeking to make inroads on Tesla’s share of the luxury electric car market.

The attack on Nada began with an unknown caller contacting his mobile phone provider and requesting call records of connections made from his phone. A caller also contacted his bank. Then, blogs began publishing accusations that made him look like an al-Qaida financier. Ultimately, Nada’s bank cut ties with him. His company, Lord Energy, which he says had annual revenues of $2 billion at the time, collapsed as a result. It was only three years later that he learned – from documents that the suspected hackers sent to him – why he became a target.

"Why Hazim Nada?" That question is at the top of a 47-page report that is now accessible because of the data leak. In the report, Alp Services outlines for their clients in the UAE why they chose Nada as their first target. The report is full of insinuations, making Nada look like an influential figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, and includes a summary of "suspicious” contacts along with photos of friends and family members, some of whom live in Qatar or work for his company. An attachment reveals seven pages of Nada’s last telephone contacts. It is a tendentious report, and evidence for the accusations held within is nonexistent.

Nada says that Alp Services wanted to use him to prove what they are capable of. And this sample of the company’s expertise didn’t just ruin Nada’s company – it also came close to shattering his psychological health as well. There were times, he says, when he seriously considered arming himself and storming into the offices of the Swiss company. Nada is currently planning on suing Alp Services and the UAE for damages.

Small Talk about the Weather and Corona

In its report for UAE, Alp Services presented Nada’s company as an entity in the "global Muslim Brotherhood secret terror system." And the UAE seemed to believe the story, at least measured by the fact that they continued contracting Alp Services. It apparently didn’t take much to convince UAE of the existence of an enemy.

The documents indicate that Alp Services were in touch with a UAE intelligence official on an almost daily basis. Their contact was an agent named Mater. In recorded telephone conversations, the Swiss chatted with the UAE agent about the weather (much hotter in the emirates), the coronavirus pandemic (hopefully over soon) and about recent and approaching visits. And they also, of course, talked business.

The work was quite lucrative for the Swiss. They received around 5.7 million euros from Abu Dhabi for their services. And all they had to do, it seems, was present a constant stream of enemies to the UAE. One of the company’s most successful projects focused on destroying the reputation of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW). It was a project that would lead Alp Services across the border into Germany.

Islamic Relief Worldwide is one of the largest Muslim aid organizations in existence. Founded in Birmingham in 1984, the NGO is designated as a terrorist organization in the UAE. In 2020, the German government found there were "significant personnel links to the Muslim Brotherhood." Yet in Europe, several governments provided financial assistance to the NGO, as did Germany. In 2019, the group received 2.5 million euros from the German government and an additional 2.3 million euros from the alliance Aktion Deutschland Hilft. Alp Services was tasked with changing that state of affairs.

Documents from the data leak lay bare the company’s strategy. They would search for an easy target, dredge up all the muck they could find and then present it graphically to both the media and politicians. In doing so, they would stay out of the spotlight themselves, relying heavily on intermediaries. Even in situations where their claims had validity, they wanted nobody to know that the UAE was behind the campaign.

An Italian-American scholar named Lorenzo Vidino played an important role in the campaign. The 46-year-old Vidino is the director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University in the U.S. He is a recognized expert on the Muslim Brotherhood and has published several books on the group – and has also, he says, acted as an adviser to eight Western governments. Since 2018, he has repeatedly performed work for Alp Services. When contacted, he says he was unaware that the UAE had contracted the Swiss company.

"A Guest of the Government"

Vidino was incredibly valuable for Alp Services. He was able to establish contacts to reputable media outlets and he had access to a network through which Alp Services could receive secret service information – a network the company could also use to funnel information back into intelligence and government channels. Vidino also apparently had contact with state agencies in Germany.

In February 2020, the scholar wrote a memo on behalf of Alp Services about members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany. At one point, he asked an Alp Services employee how quickly the memo had to be finished, because, he said, he would be in Berlin for a few days in mid-March as a "guest of the government." If he could send his report after that visit, he said, it would be "juicier." When contacted by DER SPIEGEL, Vidino said that the trip never actually took place.

But he sent a memo anyway. In it, he noted that German security officials were boosting their resources for conducting surveillance on the Muslim Brotherhood. And he also delivered a list of "interesting individuals," including Heshmat Khalifa, then a member of the board at Islamic Relief.

In a chat, an Alp Services employee asked whether Vidino had more information about Khalifa. The scholar said he did not, but mentioned that the name – like others on the list – came from "various meetings with German intel." It was information that Alp Services transmitted directly to Abu Dhabi.

"Dear friend," an Alp Services staffer wrote to the Emirati secret service contact Matar in June 2020, "we have some good news." Through a "top university professor," the company had established contact with the well-respected British daily the Times of London, the staffer wrote. The Times had responded, the letter continued, that the information had been "fascinating to read."

A short time later, an article appeared in the Times, according to which Heshmet Khalifa had written a post on Facebook in 2014 calling Jews the "grandchildren of monkeys and pigs" and also called the Egyptian president a "pimp son of the Jews." It was all information that Alp Services had previously amassed as part of a case study. Khalifa immediately stepped down.

Digging Deep

Not long later, a further story appeared in the Times, according to which Almoutaz Tayara, who was director of Islamic Relief Deutschland (IRD) at the time, had celebrated the Qassam Brigades – the armed wing of the Islamist group Hamas – as "heroes" many years earlier. Alp Services digs deep to find the dirt – and then deploys it to strike its targets.

The information also found its way to Germany. Emails from Alp Services to the Emirati intelligence officer Matar show that Germany is an important target country for UAE. It is, after all, home to millions of Muslims. The Swiss are also fully aware of German sensibilities when it comes to public denunciations of religious minorities. The Times story, according to internal Alp Services memos, initially gained little traction in Germany, with some blogs picking it up, but influential media outlets steering clear. Alp Services then wrote to Matar that they had discretely contacted Aktion Deutschland Hilft.

Even though Tayara also stepped down and both IRW and IRD distanced themselves from anti-Semitism, Aktion Deutschland Hilft suspended its cooperation with the group. Later, Alp Services was able to inform its client that media attention was growing. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose photo had been on the Islamic Relief Deutschland website as a prominent backer, even took the step of withdrawing his support.

During that same period of time, the Swiss company had apparently also been able to establish contact with the center-right German political party Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which was part of Germany’s governing coalition at the time. Alp Services documents claim that the company had held "discrete exchanges" with CDU member of parliament Christoph de Vries.

On August 25, 2020, the politician received an email from a woman. A quick Google search of her name directs you to an expert of the same name who works for a well-respected German foundation.

In the email to de Vries, a specialist in domestic policy issues, the purported foundation employee was disapproving of Islamic Relief Deutschland and included links to the critical articles that appeared in the Times, along with a brief summary. Nevertheless, the email continued, the organization receives significant funding from the German Foreign Ministry and the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Germany’s state-owned aid agency that is run out of the Development Ministry. The email closed with the words: "This situation is unacceptable. Policymakers must take action."

But the mail was sent from a fake address – apparently from one of the many identities that Alp Services uses in Europe.

Lucrative Business

The CDU lawmaker de Vries says he did not suspect at the time that the email had come from an agency working on behalf of the UAE. When contacted by DER SPIEGEL, de Vries said he has never had any contact with Alp Services and had never heard of the company. He said he believed that the email had, in fact, been sent by the foundation employee whose name had been used. The actual source of the email, though, wasn’t ultimately all that important "since the information about Islamic Relief was true," he says. "The Muslim Brotherhood and its contacts are a relevant phenomenon of Islamism in Germany," he adds, noting that German domestic intelligence officials have issued frequent warnings.