A man from Ireland has confessed to taking $5000 in crypto per month to spy for Deel on Rippling, a payroll management firm, on behalf of Deel’s competitor. The scheme, which was reminiscent of Hollywood corporate espionage, attracted global media attention, and almost led to him fleeing to Dubai.
It is a good idea to get started with a newbie. The affidavitKeith O’Brien, in a signed document filed on April 1, claimed that he had become a corporate spy of Deel while still working for Rippling.
O’Brien, who allegedly used Telegram between September 2024 and march 2025 to share information with Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz about the corporate strategy of his employer and the customer insights, allegedly did so “multiples times every day during the workday”, and even on weekends.
“[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 said in the statement.
O’Brien claimed that Deel executives gave him $5,000 Ethereum per month to pay for espionage. The mole was told the method of payment “would not leave a trace,” O’Brien stated. Self-confessed spy claimed he received tokens reluctantly in his Blockchain.com account, but he planned to liquify them and then transfer the funds to his bank because he “was concerned about cryptocurrency fluctuations.”
It comes just a couple of weeks after Rippling had sued Deel before a San Francisco Federal Court for orchestrating alleged extortion. A calculated and illegal corporate espionage plan. This legal battle is the latest confrontation between two HR software firms that, a few short years ago, each had valuations of more than $10 billion. They specialized in managing remote workers which are less prevalent in this post-pandemic age.
It also coincides with the industry’s efforts to repair its image. The crypto sector is fighting against narratives which claim that bad actors prefer digital assets to cover up their crimes.
Disclosure: DASTAN, Decrypt's Rippling’s parent company was once a Deel client.
O’Brien claimed in his declaration that Bouaziz had asked him on occasion to look up specific information regarding Rippling’s operations through the company’s website. Slack is a great tool, as are Salesforce and Google Drive. The executive told O’Brien, in an affidavit that Rippling internal systems would be able to search for terms like “Tom Brady”, “iran”, “tinybird”, “sanctioned” countries and more.
Bouaziz was reported by the ex-spy to be particularly interested in obtaining information on Deel’s customers that had registered for Rippling demonstrations.
A solicitor from an independent firm served O’Brien with a court warrant at Rippling’s Dublin offices in March, which required the employees’ devices to be inspected. Deel’s legal team spoke to O’Brien on that evening to see if he would be willing to flee to Dubai along with his wife and children.
O’Brien performed a reset of his phone a few days later, and cut it with an axe, then threw the pieces down a drain in his mother’s house, at Deel’s direction.
Two weeks later, however, he confessed.
In a statement, he stated: “I realised that I was hurting myself and family in order to protect Deel.” “I have always been concerned with how powerful and wealthy the rich and influential are. [Deel’s executives] are, but…I want to do what I can to start making amends and righting these wrongs.”
James Rubin is the editor
