Fake Jobs, Real Spies: China’s Online Recruitment Machine | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS
September 4, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readIn February 2025, Max Lester's wife started looking for a job in geopolitical risk consulting. While scrolling LinkedIn to help her, Lester—a senior analyst at FDD's Center on Emerging Threats—came across a remote consulting firm offering good pay. The LinkedIn presence was sparse, the website set off his "spidey senses," and when he checked the domain's WHOIS registration data, the registrant country was China. The firm claimed to be dual-headquartered in Colorado and Singapore. That didn't add up. What Lester had stumbled into was a network of fake consulting companies—at least five or six websites—that he traced back to a Chinese internet company. Those sites were posting job ads on Craigslist, explicitly targeting people affected by layoffs, and offering them consulting work that started with benign open-source reports and then escalated into requests for information that looked a lot like espionage.
The Gig Economy of Espionage
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:57) **Introduction & Guest Bio** - Hosts D and Jonathan Hackett welcome Max Lester, senior analyst at FDD’s Emerging Threats Center, to discuss Chinese online recruitment for espionage.
- 2 (04:21) **How the Investigation Began: A LinkedIn Job Post** - Max recounts the accidental discovery that launched his research.
- 3 (08:11) **Why China Targets Chinese Nationals & Family Leverage** - Jonathan contrasts US and Chinese recruitment philosophies.
- 4 (11:59) **China’s Collection Priorities vs. Russia’s** - The hosts compare Chinese and Russian espionage strategies.
- 5 (14:44) **The Escalation Ladder: From Open Source to Secrets** - Max describes the classic elicitation pattern used in these operations.
- 6 (18:04) **The Hourglass Technique & How Elicitation Works** - Jonathan explains the counterintelligence mechanics behind these approaches.
- 7 (22:13) **Gaming Worlds & Catfishing: Virtual Espionage Frontiers** - The conversation turns to creative virtual methods.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Find Max here: https://www.fdd.org/team/max-lesser/
Support the show on Patreon:⬇️
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Jon's Twitter:
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Jon's LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett
Jon's books:
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Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️
Apple Podcasts:
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https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ
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https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong
Find Mick Mulroy here:
Fogbow ⬇️
https://fogbow.com/
Lobo Institute ⬇️
https://www.loboinstitute.org/
Twitter ⬇️
https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA
LinkedIn ⬇️
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/
Whitefish security summit ⬇️
https://whitefishsecuritysummit.com
Find Marc P here:
https://x.com/Mpolymer
Find Andy Milburn here:
Twitter ⬇️
https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8
LinkedIn ⬇️
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023
Substack ⬇️
https://amilburn.substack.com/
Andy’s book ⬇️
https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations
"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"
00:00 – Start
00:59 – China’s New Virtual Espionage Model
02:28 – How Max Discovered a Fake Chinese Consulting Network
06:18 – Why China Targets Former Government Employees
10:09 – What Intelligence Is China Actually Trying to Collect?
15:35 – How Elicitation Works & When You Realize You’ve Gone Too Far
19:42 – Catfishing, Dating Apps & Espionage Online
20:50 – Chinese Intelligence Operations Inside World of Warcraft
22:03 – Are Russian & Chinese Influencers Manipulating Social Media Feeds?
26:47 – China’s Online Influence Operations & TikTok
30:25 – Why Americans Should Care About Chinese Data Collection
36:45 – AI, Fake Websites & the Massive Scale of Chinese Espionage
40:59 – Why Taking Down Spy Websites Won’t Solve the Problem
46:13 – Is China Deliberately Flooding U.S. Counterintelligence?
47:34 – Russia’s “Operation
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