Alleged Tech Spy Says He Was Paid in Ethereum to Snoop for Rival Firm

An Irish man has admitted to accepting $5,000 per month in cryptocurrency to spy on payroll management company Rippling on behalf of its competitor, Deel, in a Hollywood-style corporate espionage scheme that drew global media attention and nearly forced him to flee to Dubai.

Keith O'Brien claimed in an affidavit filed in Dublin court on April 1 that he became a corporate spy for Deel in September of last year, while still employed by Rippling.

Between September 2024 and March 2025, O’Brien allegedly used Telegram to send Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz information regarding his employer’s corporate strategy and consumer insights “multiple times a day every workday” and sometimes on the weekends, according to the sworn declaration.

"[Deel's CEO] suggested that I remain at Rippling and become a 'spy' for Deel, and I recall him specifically mentioning James Bond," O'Brien wrote in the release.

Deel officials paid O'Brien $5,000 in Ethereum every month for the espionage, informing their informant that the payment mechanism "would leave no trace," according to O'Brien. The self-proclaimed spy stated that he grudgingly received the tokens in his Blockchain.com wallet, where he intended to liquify the funds and transfer them to his bank account since he was "concerned about cryptocurrency fluctuation."

The revelation comes just a few weeks after Rippling sued Deel in federal court in San Francisco for allegedly conducting "a calculated and unlawful corporate espionage scheme."

The legal drama is the latest clash between the HR software businesses, which both received values of more than $10 billion a few years ago for specializing in solutions for managing remote work forces, which have become less popular in the post-pandemic age.

The case also comes as the crypto industry is attempting to restore its reputation by refuting prevalent notions that digital assets are preferred by bad actors looking to conceal their misdeeds.

Disclosure: Decrypt's parent business, DASTAN, was a client of Deel and currently has a contract with Rippling.

According to O'Brien, Bouaziz occasionally instructed him to search for specific information on Rippling's business using the company's Slack, Salesforce, and Google Drive.

According to the affidavit, the CEO directed O'Brien to enter search terms such as "Tom Brady," "Iran," "Tiny Bird," and "Sanctioned Countries" into Rippling's internal systems.

The former spy also claimed that Bouaziz appeared to be particularly interested in information regarding Deel customers who had agreed to Rippling product demonstrations.

The alleged scam came to a stop in mid-March, when an independent solicitor served O'Brien with a court order at Rippling's Dublin office ordering an investigation of the employee's gadgets. That night, Deel's lawyers discussed with O'Brien the prospect of him leaving to Dubai with his family.

At the request of Deel's lawyers, O'Brien did a factory reset on his phone, cut it up with an axe, and tossed it down a drain at his mother's house a few days after being served.

Almost two weeks later, he decided to confess to his claimed misdeeds.

"I realized that I was harming myself and my family in order to protect Deel," he claimed in the statement. "I was concerned, and I am still concerned about how wealthy and powerful [Deel's executives] are, but…I want to do what I can to start making amends and righting these wrongs."

Edited by DoroTV