This is a followup to our earlier story on the Deel/Rippling espionage case.  If you missed that post, briefly:

• Rippling (a SaaS HR company) accused Deel (a competitor in the same space) of recruiting or placing a spy in their company.
• That spy fed Deel detailed info on Rippling’s sales pipeline, giving Deel a huge advantage in competitive sales situations.
• Rippling created a clever honeypot which proved that this spying was being directed at Deel’s highest levels.
• When confronted, the spy tried to flush his phone down the toilet and managed to flee from government agents.

Since then, the spy (Keith O’Brien) has come clean to authorities.  And now his affidavit is out.  It’s a fun read.  Some highlights:

• O’Brien was a Rippling employee who originally applied for a role at Deel but was turned down.  That was his initial contact with Alex Bouaziz, the Deel CEO.
• Later when Bouaziz became aware O’Brien was leaving Rippling, Bouaziz reached out to recruit him as a spy.  So it was Deel who actually proposed the mission.
• Using WhatsApp for the communication, they negotiated terms, wherein O’Brien would receive 5,000 Euros (or $6,000/month – both sums are named) for his espionage services.  Initially this was paid through Revolut but later they switched to crypto.
• They had a pretty amateur league way to handling these payments.  O’Brien sent a picture of a watch, Deel reported back that the “the buyer was happy”, payment was sent, etc.  Why this pantomime was needed is unclear.
• Later, after O’Brien was exposed, Deel’s legal team advised him to invent a story about Rippling being involved with sanctioned Russian payments and claim that he (O’Brien) was being harassed by Rippling for reporting this.
• They also gave him an escape route, via an offer to be flown to Dubai and apparently live there permanently.
• Although Deel initially swore to O’Brien that “the guys at the top have your back”, they hung him out to dry.

I have to say, this is ridiculous stupidity on all sides.

• O’Brien sacrificed his career for $6,000 a month.  Even if he got that for a year and considering it was expected to be tax free – and of course, setting moral objections aside! – it’s still way too little for the risk.
• The CEO and his legal squad blew up Deel over this nonsense.
• The whole “we’ll fly you to Dubai” is what ultimately spooked O’Brien.  I sure as hell wouldn’t have gotten on that plane.

Enjoy :-)

• Author
• Recent Posts

raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308

Latest posts by raindog308 (see all)

• I Checked And These .ge Domain Hacks Are Still Available!Get a FREE .ge Domain with $9/YEAR Hosting from Worldbus! - April 12, 2025
• How to Poison AI Scrapers With Colorless, Odorless Iocaine: The Current Arms Race Between Billionaires and Hosters - April 12, 2025
• Five Different Ways to Read Any News Article for FREE - April 11, 2025