The Post-Snowden Cyber Arms Hustle

Just after lunchtime one day in February 2015, Manish Kumar entered the presidential palace in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott via the side gate—the one reserved for private business. His government SUV was driven by a gregarious man in a loose-fitting white robe, who navigated the vehicle toward the back of the compound, away from the main palace building’s soaring glass atrium and modern-looking turrets, which give it a Martha Stewart-meets-Gunga Din look. The driver pulled up to a smaller structure with a massive satellite dish on top, where Kumar was to meet Ahmed Bah dit Hmeida, an official with the innocuous-sounding title of counsellor to the president.

A month earlier, Bah, whose responsibilities include overseeing an electronic spying apparatus aimed at his boss’s enemies, had transferred half a million dollars to an account in the British Virgin Islands, as a down payment for a sophisticated technology suite offered by Kumar’s company, Wolf Intelligence. The full contract was worth $2.5 million, plus an annual service agreement. It was the biggest score of Kumar’s blossoming career as a globe-trotting cyberweapons dealer.