Phone signals from Jersey used to help track down fleeing Dubai royal

Tuesday 23 February 2021

Mobile phone signals sent from Jersey were used as part of a bid to track down a Dubai royal as she attempted to flee the UAE, it has emerged.

One of the devices on board the 29-metre sailboat Princess Latifa used in hope of reaching India – and eventually a free life - in 2018 gave away the vessel’s location on its eighth day at sea.

When the royal went missing, her father, billionaire ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, not only enlisted special forces in the Emirates and India as part of a massive search operation, but used “malicious” mobile tracking signals sent from the Channel Islands. 

“In December, the Bureau for Investigative Journalism obtained data which it says showed that a mobile phone on the Nostromo was pinged with location-seeking signals the day before it was raided,” the Telegraph reported.

“The London-based not-for-profit media platform detailed how early on March 3 2018, mobile networks in Jersey, Cameroon, Israel, and Laos began sending the phone on the boat ‘send routing information’ requests.”

Pictured: Mobile tracking signals sent from the Channel Islands were used to hunt down the fleeing Dubai princess.

Such technology has a legitimate use – it can be used to pinpoint a phone’s location for the purpose of connecting calls or triggering roaming charges. However, it recently emerged that this function of mobile phone networks in the Channel Islands had been used for more sinister purposes – by private intelligence companies to undertake surveillance.

Once Princess Latifa’s getaway ship’s location was identified, Indian and Emirati commandos boarded it to forcefully remove her.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism suggests that the phone used to track down the vessel belonged to its captain, former French intelligence officer Hervé Jaubert, although he has denied he was to blame.

The story of her attempted escape was revealed by the BBC last week in a Panorama documentary featuring covert videos in which she accused her family of holding her hostage in a heavily-guarded villa and said she feared for her life.

Since then, the Dubai royal family have maintained that she is “being cared for at home”, adding in a statement: “She continues to improve and we are hopeful she will return to public life at the appropriate time.”

The UN human rights agency has urged the UAE to provide proof that the Princess is still alive and there are now global calls for a UN investigation into what happened.