Federal authorities on Monday seized 13 internet domains tied to what the U.S. Justice Department said were fake consulting firms used to recruit current and former U.S. government and military employees to provide information to suspected Chinese agents.
The department said the firms lured targets with online job postings for consulting and analyst roles before seeking access to nonpublic or sensitive information.
“(Wednesday’s) seizures send a clear message that any attempts to exploit Americans trusted with access to our nation’s most sensitive information will be exposed and dismantled,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia said in the statement.
The announcement comes a week after the United States, Britain, and other members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance warned that China was increasingly using online job platforms to target individuals for information gathering.
Federal officials said the seized domains underscore a broader effort by Chinese intelligence services to use digital tools to identify and recruit potential sources.
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“The fake consulting company domains seized by the FBI illustrate the lengths the Chinese government’s intelligence services will go to as they try to use AI-generated content to trick, recruit, or coerce current and former U.S. security clearance holders into sharing sensitive information,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division.
“The FBI and our partners have observed China’s intelligence services resort to using AI, professional networking sites, and online payment platforms to target Americans, and we have taken actions to defend the homeland and our national security.”
Echoing those concerns, Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division, said the operation targeted a long-running tactic used by Chinese intelligence services.
“For too long, the Chinese government has tried to exploit U.S. government employees behind the cover of fake companies and phony job postings,” Wierzbicki said. “Today, we shut them down. These seizures will prevent these fraudulent sites from being used to target Americans with access to sensitive information.”
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington rejected the allegations, saying “the allegation of so-called ‘Chinese espionage threat’ is entirely fabricated and constitutes malicious slander. We strongly condemn this.”
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The latest accusations are not the first to involve alleged Chinese intelligence efforts using fake consulting firms to recruit current or former Western government officials. In March, Reuters reported that a similar network of purported consulting companies was attempting to recruit federal employees who had recently been fired as part of President Donald Trump’s government workforce reductions.
U.S. counterintelligence officials have long warned that such recruitment tactics can serve as a gateway to espionage activities. In September 2020, the FBI and the National Counterintelligence and Security Center released a short film dramatizing the case of former CIA officer Kevin Mallory, who was sentenced in 2019 to 20 years in prison after being convicted of conspiring to transmit U.S. defense secrets to China.
According to court records, Mallory was initially recruited through social media for what appeared to be a foreign-policy consulting opportunity. His case has since been featured prominently on an FBI website warning about “virtual espionage” and the use of online recruitment tactics to target individuals with access to sensitive information.