Saudi and Emirati royals allegedly put nearly $2 billion into secret accounts for Jared Kushner, possibly “paying for his influence within the US government”.
The claims come from a new book titled Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East, by American investigative journalist Matthew Cole.
In an excerpt published by Vanity Fair, Cole alleges that Kushner moved significant sums of money to several “individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man”.
Kushner, current United States Special Envoy for Peace, vehemently denies the claims, branding them “outrageous and categorically false” in a post on X.
How did Dutch spies access Kushner’s iPhone?
The story traces all the way back to 2017, when the Dutch Defence Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) learned that a Russian military intelligence (GRU) hacker was en route to the UK for a secret mission.
Acting decisively, the MIVD reached out to the British government for permission to apprehend him, and the British agreed.
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Once the hacker arrived in the UK, the Dutch gave him a choice: either work for us, or you’ll be arrested and charged with espionage.
The hacker chose to switch sides, giving Dutch spies access to some of GRU’s “most sensitive assets” — including a server in Rostov that allegedly held screenshots of Kushner’s iPhone.
In the months that followed, the MIVD attempted to reverse engineer the system the Russians had used to hack Kushner’s device. By the time 2018 rolled around, Cole claims they succeeded, thanks to a vulnerability in the iPhone’s security.
“In late spring 2020, a source I knew to be reliable called me with a story,” writes Matthew Cole. “The Dutch government had hacked into Jared Kushner’s phone and monitored him as he accessed a Dubai-based bank account. What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan. Most importantly, Kushner appeared to have transferred significant amounts of money from the Dubai account to other individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man. The story sounded preposterous, I told my source. And yet. Six months later, I found myself speaking with someone else about the UAE government and their use of mercenaries in conflicts around the Middle East and Africa when I asked, on a whim, whether they knew anything about Kushner and bank transfers from a UAE account. My acquaintance grew quiet. Then they replied, ‘Yes.’” Kushner’s lawyer denied the bank account existed. Read an exclusive excerpt from Cole’s book, ‘Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East’: https://t.co/PRoWgY5pSo
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) October 22, 2026
Millions of dollars and countless dodgy deals
According to Cole, the hack gave the Dutch access to Kushner’s screen as he used it, where they watched him log into a suspicious Emirati bank account.
By then, the account had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan. The MIVD’s first guess was that the money came from an account linked to the Azerbaijani government.
According to Cole, some Azerbaijani banks convert currencies like Saudi riyals and Emirati dirhams into dollars, creating a trail that auditors can’t follow.
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As it turns out, the account belonged to the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, a charity funded by the UAE government, run by Emirati business executive Dherar Belhoul Al Falasi, with Kushner as a signatory.
From 2017, Saudi Arabia and the UAE reportedly paid roughly $750 million into the account. Cole says it was used as a foreign policy fund, partly managed by Kushner and former Emirati ruler Mohamed bin Zayed.
Later investigations would reveal that the Emirati account “was used as a cover to move money in support of the country’s secret military and intelligence operations overseas”. Through it, Cole alleges, Al Falasi “helped facilitate the UAE’s secret weapons-purchasing programs”.
A further billion in Israel
Cole also describes a second pot of money that Kushner allegedly had a hand in, dubbed the Beta account.
By spring 2018, bin Zayed moved roughly $1 billion to Israel via Azerbaijan for Kushner. While it’s unclear how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found out about the money, he reportedly encouraged Kushner to deposit it at Israel’s central bank, where it would look like a government account.
And, with the money sitting in the central bank, Cole writes, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to trace it from bin Zayed to Kushner.
Unlike the Emirati account, the money in Israel was allegedly meant for Kushner’s personal benefit, according to one of Cole’s sources.
So, did Kushner actually break the law?
While Kushner’s White House gig was unpaid, he was still a government employee. As such, his role required financial disclosures and filing of the Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report (OGE Form 278e).
Cole argues that if Kushner failed to disclose his access to the account (and reported dealings on his tax returns), he may have violated US law.
Four senior officials from Trump’s first administration, including two national security advisers, a White House chief of staff, and a former CIA director, told Cole they weren’t aware of presidential approval for Kushner to access a foreign government’s bank account.
And by giving Kushner access to billions, Cole writes, foreign parties were “paying for his influence within the US government”.
Kushner’s lawyer, meanwhile, tells Vanity Fair that the US Envoy “has no idea” about the account in question.
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