Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reveals company worked behind the scenes to free hostage Sasha Troufanov

Since learning that Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, released on Saturday, was being held in Hamas captivity, his employer, Amazon, had a dedicated team working to support efforts to free him, the company’s CEO, Andy Jassy, said in a message to employees.

“Since we learned of Sasha and his family’s abduction, we’ve had a dedicated team working behind the scenes with experts to support efforts to secure their release and to ensure that we did the right thing for them and their safety,” Jassy said.

He added that this included refraining from public comment “for fear that we would negatively impact their ability to be released or how they were treated in captivity.”

Amazon had taken a lot of heat from the Israeli public and press in the past year for not coming out with a statement about Troufanov, an engineer in Amazon’s AWS cloud division, for more than a year.

In November, Troufanov’s friends attended an AWS conference in Las Vegas – where one of the products launched was developed by Troufanov’s team – hiring trucks with his picture on them and handing out shirts with his face.

“Our aim is not to lock horns with Amazon,” Neta Yessod Alon told Globes in an interview published in December. She is a good friend of Troufanov and was one of those behind the campaign to raise awareness about his plight and bring about his release. “We wanted to propose that the company join us.”

She added that the company had hired an external consultant who said it was wrong to publicize that Troufanov worked at Amazon for fear it could hurt him but added that they consulted former Mossad head Yossi Cohen, who said this was not a valid concern.

We will continue to support him

Jassy said on Saturday that the company will continue to support Troufanov “and do everything we can to help [him and his family] heal.”

He continued, “It’s been an extremely trying time for everybody who knows and cares for Sasha – a lot of angst and feelings of helplessness. But it can’t approach what Sasha and his family have been through.

“Thank you to all who tirelessly advocated for his safe return – I share your gratitude and relief that Sasha and [the] other hostages were released today. My heart goes out to everyone who has been impacted by the war, and I continue to hope that we get on a long-term peaceful path,” he added.

This is not the first report that a major corporation has made efforts behind the scenes to return their employees taken captive.

International pharmaceutical company Lundbeck reportedly deployed a secret agent to Gaza, in addition to hiring a missing-persons expert, when campaigning for the release of its employee, freed hostage Keith Siegel.

Globes/TNS and Itay Gal contributed to this report.