Max Lesser, a senior analyst on emerging threats with the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said some companies placing recruitment ads were “part of a broader network of fake consulting and headhunting firms targeting former government employees and AI researchers.”
The four companies’ websites are hosted at the same IP address alongside Smiao Intelligence, an internet services company whose website became unavailable during Reuters’ reporting. Reuters could not determine the nature of the relationship between Smiao Intelligence and the four companies.
Lesser, who uncovered the network and shared his research with Reuters ahead of publication, said the campaign follows “well-established” techniques used by previous Chinese intelligence operations.
Reuters could not determine if the companies are linked to the Chinese government or whether any former federal workers were recruited.
Once employed by the network, federal employees could then be asked to share increasingly sensitive information about government operations, or recommend additional people who might be targeted for willing or unwitting participation, the analysts said.
A White House spokesperson said China was constantly trying to exploit the United States’ “free and open system” through espionage and coercion. “Both active and former government employees must recognize the danger these governments pose and the importance of safeguarding government information,“ the spokesperson said.
Reuters reported earlier this month that some U.S. government workers with top security clearances were not given standard exit briefings which, in part, cover what to do if approached by foreign adversaries.
One of the companies in the network, RiverMerge Strategies, bills itself on its website as a “professional geopolitical risk consulting company” and posted two since-deleted job listings on its since-removed LinkedIn page in mid-February.
The other sought a human resources specialist who could “utilize a deep understanding of the Washington talent pool to identify candidates with policy or consulting experience,“ and “leverage connections to local professional networks, think tanks, and academic institutions.”
Reuters could not determine the nature of the connection between the network of companies, Smiao Intelligence, and Shenzhen Si Xun Software Co., Ltd. Calls to a phone number listed on the company’s website did not go through.
A person listed on LinkedIn as an employee of RiverMerge, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters an acquaintance he met at a networking event in China reached out and asked him to help promote job listings for RiverMerge Strategies.
A person identifying themselves as William Wells and RiverMerge’s “strategies project manager” responded to an initial Reuters email and asked about Reuters’ request for information.
Another company in the network, Wavemax Innovation, placed an ad February 6 on Craigslist offering “Job Opportunities for Recently Laid-Off U.S. Government Employees.” The ad, which has since expired, sought workers with backgrounds in project management, research, technology, communications, policy analysis and more.
An email to the address posted in the ad was not returned. When Reuters visited the Singapore address posted to the company’s website there was no sign of the company, just a vacant field. A search of Singapore’s corporate registry for the company was equally barren.
In response to questions about Reuters’ findings, an FBI spokesperson warned that Chinese intelligence officers can represent themselves as think tanks, academic institutions and recruiting firms to target “current, former, and prospective” U.S. government employees.
In 2020 a Singaporean national named Jun Wei Yeo pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to acting as an agent of a foreign power, starting in 2015. Prosecutors alleged he worked to spot and assess Americans with access to non-public sensitive information and paid them to write reports for unnamed Asian clients, without disclosing the work was actually for the Chinese government.
Chinese intelligence operatives told Yeo how to recruit targets, including by asking them if they were “dissatisfied with work, were having financial troubles [or] had children to support,“ according to court records.
Foreign intelligence services often use job recruitment scams to recruit sources without them even knowing they are working for a foreign government, David Aaron, a former Department of Justice prosecutor now in private practice, told Reuters.
“I would expect China’s intelligence services to dial those efforts up as they see a wave of government employees suddenly having to look for new jobs,” Aaron said, adding that while many former government employees are motivated by patriotism, some may be vulnerable to deceptive tactics.
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