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A screenshot of the @gardatraffic account on X taken at 6:30am 15 October 2026 The Journal
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An Garda Siochána social media accounts promoting cryptocurrencies after apparent hack
The accounts, which have hundreds of thousands of followers, have been posting about cryptocurrency since late on Wednesday night.
AN GARDA SÍOCHÁNA’S main accounts on the social media platform X appear to have been hacked and are promoting cryptocurrencies in a significant security breach.
The @gardainfo and @gardatraffic accounts on X (formerly Twitter) have both been affected.
The @gardainfo account is the main X account used by An Garda Síochána and has hundreds of thousands of followers. The @gardatraffic account is used for road safety updates and has over 600,000 followers.
The feeds of both accounts are full of hundreds of posts advertising a cryptocurrency wallet application.
Users on X began reporting that the @gardainfo account appeared to have been hacked shortly after 11pm on Wednesday night.
The handle on that account has since changed to @XummHelpx.
The @gardatraffic account still has its original handle at the time of reporting.
Each one of the posts tags a different X user and invites them to claim an “allocation” of XRP, a type of cryptocurrency coin.
Fraudulent cryptocurrency promotions are often used by scammers.
Both accounts now purport to be located in the Netherlands.
An Garda Síochána has been contacted for comment.
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