Trolls worked for the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his advisors to discredit slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi (pictured) and other critics of the government on Twitter, according to a New York Times report Saturday. But most interesting, it seems they also had a man on the inside.

According to the report, a “troll farm” consisting on hundreds of people located in Riyadh was hired to smear Twitter users critical of Saudi rulership. On top of that, the report said, a Twitter Inc. employee was groomed to spy on user accounts.

That employee, Ali Alzabarah, had apparently begun working for the social media company in 2013 and quickly rose through the ranks to become an engineer. His position made it possible to gain access to user accounts, phone numbers and I.P. addresses, something Saudi intelligence believed could be useful.

Western intelligence officials became aware of this and informed Twitter that a rogue employee had been groomed to “to spy on the accounts of dissidents and others.” Alzabarah was placed on leave while an investigation ensued.

According to five sources speaking to the Times under the condition of anonymity, Alzabarah was let go at the end of 2015. Forensic analysis had been conducted to try to ascertain what information Alzabarah might have accessed, although it seems the investigators found no evidence that he had handed over anything to the Saudi government.

Nonetheless, the report said, Twitter did send safety notices to about 20 accounts that Alzabarah had accessed. Those accounts belonged to “security and privacy researchers, surveillance specialists, policy academics and journalists.”

Other accounts belonged to people who worked for the Tor Project, an anonymity network that journalists working within strict regimes can use to protect their identity and get around firewalls. “As a precaution, we are alerting you that your Twitter account is one of a small group of accounts that may have been targeted by state-sponsored actors,” Twitter said in that safety notice.

Alzabarah returned to Saudi Arabia soon after his dismissal and is now reportedly working with the Saudi government. Twitter so far has declined to comment on the story.

Image: POMED via Flickr