• A Rippling employee admitted to being paid €5,000 monthly by Deel to spy on confidential company information for four months.
  • The spy was caught through a trap involving a fake Slack channel, leading to a dramatic confrontation where he destroyed his phone.
  • Deel denies wrongdoing, claiming Rippling is attempting to shift attention away from its alleged violations of Russian sanctions.

An affidavit released by HR tech company Rippling reveals a corporate espionage plot worthy of a Hollywood thriller.

An employee confesses to spying for rival Deel while attempting to destroy evidence with an axe.

The document, signed by Keith O'Brien on April 1, details how, after failing to secure a job at Deel in early 2024, he was allegedly recruited as a spy by Deel's founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz and CFO Philippe Bouaziz.

According to O'Brien, they offered him €5,000 monthly, with initial payments in U.S. dollars and subsequent transactions in cryptocurrency.

Over four months, O'Brien allegedly accessed Rippling's internal systems to gather confidential information, including sales leads, product roadmaps, customer accounts, and employee data.

The lawsuit claims that in a single day, he shared hundreds of company demo requests, sales prospect notes, and details on Deel customers that Rippling was targeting.

Rippling uncovered the espionage through a clever trap: He created a fake Slack channel called "d-defectors" and sent Deel a legal letter mentioning it. When O'Brien searched for the channel, he triggered his exposure.

The affidavit describes a dramatic confrontation on March 14 when Rippling lawyers approached O'Brien with a court order to search his devices. O'Brien admitted to hiding his phone, wiping it in a bathroom, later destroying it with an axe, and disposing of it at his mother-in-law's house.

O'Brien claims Deel representatives suggested flying him and his family to Dubai to avoid extradition and coaching him to falsely claim he was a whistleblower exposing Rippling's Russian payment activities.

Deel has denied wrongdoing, stating Rippling is "trying to shift the narrative with these sensationalized claims" following accusations that Rippling violated sanctions law in Russia.

Rippling's attorney Alex Spiro maintains the evidence is "undeniable" and that "the highest levels of Deel's leadership are implicated."

Edited by Annette George