A screenshot of the @gardatraffic account on X taken at 6:30am 15 October 2026 The Journal
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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.