Keith O'Brien, a former employee of Rippling, has confessed to engaging in corporate espionage on behalf of Deel, a direct competitor in the HR software industry. O'Brien's admission came in an affidavit filed in an Irish court, detailing his recruitment by Deel's CEO, Alex Bouaziz, to spy on Rippling. The espionage involved O'Brien remaining at Rippling to gather and relay sensitive information to Deel, including details on Rippling's corporate strategy and customer insights. O'Brien communicated with Deel via Telegram and was instructed by Bouaziz and his father, Philippe Bouaziz, Deel's CFO, to search Rippling's internal systems like Slack, Salesforce, and Google Drive for specific information. O'Brien was allegedly paid €5,000 per month for his services, with payments initially made in fiat currency and later switched to Ethereum cryptocurrency. The payments were coordinated through a person known only as 'The Watchman' in the Telegram chat. The scheme was uncovered after Rippling set a honeypot operation, leading to O'Brien's eventual confession. Following the exposure, Deel's lawyers reportedly advised O'Brien to perform a factory reset on his phone and destroy it with an axe, and offered to relocate him and his family to Dubai. Rippling has filed a lawsuit against Deel in a San Francisco federal court, accusing the company of orchestrating the espionage and violating the RICO act, misappropriation of trade secrets, and unfair competition. Deel has denied any wrongdoing and plans to file counterclaims against Rippling. The legal action marks a significant escalation in the rivalry between the two companies, both valued at over $10 billion, with Deel also accused of attempting to shift the narrative by alleging Rippling facilitated sanctioned Russian payments.