The alleged tech spy says he was paid in Ethereum to browse for rival company

An Irish man has admitted that he accepted $ 5000 a month in Cryptocurrency to spy on pay manager who, on behalf of his competitor, part, in a Hollywood-like company-spy scheme that attracted global media attention and almost led to Dubai.

In one declarationSigned on April 1 and submitted in the Dublin court, Keith O’Brien claimed that he was a business spy last September, while he was still an employee of rabbing.

Between September 2024 and March 2025, O’Brien is said to have used Telegram to nourish part CEO Alex Bouaziz information about the business strategy of his employer and customer insights “several times a day every working day” and sometimes during the weekend, according to the sworn explanation.

‘[Deel’s CEO] suggested that I kept rabbing and becoming a ‘spy’ by part, and I remember that he specifically called James Bond, “O’Brien said in the statement.

Part -leaders paid O’Brien $ 5,000 in Ethereum per month for the espionage, where they tell their mole that the payment method ‘according to O’Brien would not leave no trace’. The self-proclaimed spy said that he reluctantly received the tokens in his blockchain.com portion, where he would flow the money and transfer it to his bank account because he was “worried about cryptocurrency fluctuation.”

The admission comes a few weeks after babbling part suggested in a federal court in San Francisco for alleged orchestration “A calculated and illegal company -spionage schedule.” The legal drama marks the newest face-off between the HR software companies, each of which played a few years ago north of $ 10 billion in the north of $ 10 billion by specializing in solutions for remote workers that have become less usual in the post-Tandemic era.

The lawsuit also comes when the crypto industry tries to rehabilitate its image, push back against popular stories that claim that digital assets are being favored by bad actors who want to hide their crimes.

Publication: Dastan, Decrypts Parent company was a customer of part and now has a contract with Rippel.

O’Brien said in his statement that Bouaziz sometimes asked him to look for specific information regarding Rippel’s business through the company Slack, Salesforce and Google Drive. The director ordered O’Brien to close search terms, such as “Tom Brady” “Iran” “Tinybird” and “Sanctioned countries” in the internal systems of Rippel, according to the statement.

The former spy also claimed that Bouaziz seemed particularly interested in information about part -customers who had registered for Rippel product demonstrations.

The alleged regulation ended in mid -March, when an independent lawyer O’Brien was a judicial order at the Rippel van Rippel office that required the employee’s inspection. That night the lawyers of Deel spoke with O’Brien to explore the opportunity that he and his family fled to Dubai.

A few days after he was served, O’Brien also carried out a factory reset on his phone, cut it with an ax and threw it a drain to his mother in the house of Deel’s lawyers.

Almost two weeks later he decided to see his alleged crimes.

“I realized that I was damaging myself and my family to protect part,” he said in the statement. “I was worried and I am still worried about how rich and powerful [Deel’s executives] Being, but … I want to do what I can do to make up for it and put these mistakes straight. “

Published by James Rubin