Warning: Official Garda Info X Account Appears to Have Been Compromised and Is Posting Crypto Scams
If you see “Garda Info” on X posting about crypto or XRP tonight, it isn’t Gardaí. The account appears hacked. Don’t click or sign anything.
The verified @gardainfo account on X, operated by An Garda Síochána, appears to have been taken over and is being used to push a cryptocurrency scam. Do not click any links from the account, and do not connect a wallet or sign anything it asks you to.
At approximately 23:00 on Wednesday 14 October 2026, Cork Safety Alerts observed that the account, which has close to 299,000 followers and dates from April 2013, had been renamed “Help Xaman”. Its banner, profile picture and bio had been replaced with branding imitating Xaman, a wallet app for the XRP cryptocurrency.
The account is now posting a stream of messages reading “Claim your XRP allocation”, each tagging a different user as an “eligible user” and linking to posts promoting an “airdrop” claim. Because each message mentions another account, the posts are spilling into users’ notification and mention feeds.
The scam is a well-documented one. Xaman’s own support site states that the company does not run airdrops, has never done so and never will, and that any post claiming an Xaman airdrop or XRP giveaway is not genuine. Claim pages of this type ask users to connect their wallet and sign a transaction; that signature is real and typically sends the wallet’s funds to the scammer.
The handle being promoted in the posts, @XamanlWallet, is a lookalike of the genuine @XamanWallet account, with an extra lowercase letter inserted. The same tactic of hijacking large verified accounts has been used repeatedly in recent weeks, including a takeover of Microsoft’s official X account on 2 October 2026.
At the time of writing, An Garda Síochána had not published a statement, and the garda.ie website still links directly to the X account. If the account later posts that it has been “restored”, treat that with caution too: in the Microsoft case, the attackers posted a fake apology while continuing the scam.
A blue tick does not prove who controls an account today. If a trusted account suddenly starts talking about crypto, giveaways or “allocations”, assume it has been compromised. Genuine Garda information is available at garda.ie, and anyone who has clicked a link and connected a wallet should contact their local Garda station.
