22 hours Ago By Thomas Claburn
The name's not Bond. It's O'Brien - Keith O'Brien, now-former global payroll compliance manager at the Dublin, Ireland office of HR software-as-a-service maker Rippling. But Alex Bouaziz, CEO of Deel, a competing human-resources tech firm, hoped O'Brien would play the role of the fictional British super-spy in a private corporate espionage drama turned public scandal, according to an affidavit filed Monday with Ireland's High Court.
Toward the end of September 2024, when O'Brien was considering a move from Rippling to Deel, Bouaziz allegedly pitched the idea of having him stay at Rippling to gather competitive intelligence. "Alex told me he 'had an idea,'" O'Brien said in his affidavit. "He suggested that I remain at Rippling and become a 'spy' for Deel, and I recall him specifically mentioning James Bond.
I asked him what he meant. He said he would offer me a monetary reward if I agreed to spy on Rippling for Deel. I told him I would have to think about it.
" It took O'Brien all of thirty minutes to accept the alleged offer, according to the affidavit. He claims he called he called Bouaziz back on WhatsApp and agreed to the plan, with Bouaziz's father, Philippe Bouaziz, CFO for Deel, joining the call. Thereafter, it was agreed they would communicate via Telegram "so that we could engage in secret communication," we're told.
"Alex and Philippe said I would be paid approximately 5000 euros per month for spying on Rippling for Deel, and that I would be paid around the 6th of each month," O'Brien alleged. "I wanted to be paid in fiat currency and asked that payments be made through Revolut, an online payments application." O'Brien further claims he asked Bouaziz to document their agreement as a consulting relationship, but was refused, which O'Brien took as a desire not to leave a paper trail.
He also alleges that instructions were given to split conversations into self-deleting Telegram channels: One for confidential Rippling intel, the other for payment coordination. After an initial fiat payment, he says it shifted to cryptocurrency. Allegations to this effect surfaced in US federal court last month when Rippling (aka People Center) sued Deel for theft of trade secrets and corporate espionage.
On Tuesday, Rippling filed a separate lawsuit in Ireland, accusing the Deel CEO and the biz’s lawyers of obstruction of justice. Deel did not respond to a request for comment. Rippling's claims are backed in part by O'Brien's affidavit, which describes his efforts to erase his phone and subsequent attempt to destroy it with an axe - actions he says were advised by a Deel attorney.
As noted in the US lawsuit – wherein O'Brien is identified as "D.S." (short for Deel Spy) – Rippling came to suspect they had a traitor in their midst and set a trap – a private Slack channel in its workspace called #d-defectors.
Rippling wrote to Deel execs saying they had obtained damning information about Deel from discussions in that channel. The idea being that Deel would then tell their spy to investigate the channel, outing their existence. According to his affidavit, O'Brien complied with Deel's request to investigate Rippling's Slack channel, and only realized too late that he'd been set up: At the end of February 2025, Alex told me to search Rippling’s Slack system for the channel “#d-defectors.
” I ran the search immediately and began to look at the results. Within minutes, Alex messaged me again and told me not to run the search because he believed it was a “trap.” I told Alex that by the time I got his message, I had already done the search and he said “oh shit.
” I told him that the “#d-defectors” channel had Matt Plank, Rippling’s Chief Revenue Officer, in the channel. I told him I was frightened, but he just said, “don’t worry.” Thereafter, he continued to press me to pass him information from Rippling.
On Friday, March 14, 2025, O'Brien arrived at the Rippling office in Ireland "to pick up a compliance award for one of my coworkers." An independent solicitor was waiting for him and served him with a court order to inspect his devices, according to the affidavit. Rather than comply, O'Brien alleges he "went to the bathroom with my phone and performed a factory reset on it, erasing all of its contents, including all apps and contacts.
" He then left the office, answering the solicitor's warning of potential consequences by saying, "I'll take that risk." Between March 15 and March 25, O'Brien claims he had conversations with Deel's in-house lawyers to do damage control, with commitments made to move O'Brien and his family to Dubai if he cooperated, and to cover legal costs. "Deel’s lawyer Asif [Malik] said that Deel’s strategy to help me required that I make statements that Rippling facilitated sanctioned 'Russian payments,' and that 'there’s going to be a shift in the narrative,'" O'Brien alleged, noting that he knew such claims were false.
O'Brien further claims Malik on March 15 instructed him to destroy his old phone "by breaking it up and throwing it in the canal." Instead, he says, he "smashed [the phone] with an axe and put it down the drain at my mother-in-law’s house, as Deel’s lawyer Asif had advised." He also alleged that at the direction of Deel's in-house lawyer, he filed a false report with the Central Bank of Ireland accusing Rippling of facilitating sanctioned Russian payments - allegations he now says were entirely fabricated.
He claims he reversed course on March 19, after which Deel's support disappeared. O'Brien told the High Court he then agreed to cooperate with the independent solicitor and Rippling's legal team, a deal that led to his termination with cause but includes legal support and Rippling's commitment not to press charges: I decided to cooperate after I got a text from a friend on March 25, 2025 saying, "the truth will set you free." I was also driving with a family member to meet my solicitors and she told me that if I had done something wrong that I should "just tell the truth.
" I was having bad thoughts at the time; it was a horrible time for me. I was getting sick concealing this lie. I realized that I was harming myself and my family to protect Deel.
I was concerned, and I am still concerned, about how wealthy and powerful Alex and Philippe are, but I know that what I was doing was wrong. After I spoke with my solicitors at Fenecas Law, I started to feel a sense of relief. I want to do what I can to start making amends and righting these wrongs.
If this were a Bond film, it might be called You Only Live Twice. ®.
