The Justice Department and FBI on Tuesday seized 13 fake consulting websites that suspected Chinese government agents used to recruit Americans with security clearances into selling classified and sensitive U.S. government information.
Federal authorities disabled 13 internet domains on June 10 after investigators determined they were operated by suspected agents of Beijing, the Justice Department announced. The sites posed as professional consulting firms advertising analyst and international-affairs positions, then pressured applicants to deliver insider reports and classified material in exchange for cash paid through cryptocurrency to conceal the source.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro announced the seizures alongside the FBI, calling the action a direct strike against Chinese intelligence operations targeting the American national security workforce. FBI Counterintelligence and Espionage Division Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said the operation illustrated "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," according to the Justice Department press release.
According to the affidavit filed in support of the seizure warrants, the scheme began no later than November 2023. The conspirators built at least 13 professional-looking websites under invented firm names including Centrik Global Consulting, SafeSec Group, Pulse Wave Global, Catalyst Global Solutions, and GeoIndopacific, among others. The sites advertised roles like "Senior Analyst" and "International Affairs Consultant," vague enough to attract applicants from across the federal national security workforce.
To give the firms credibility, operators used AI-generated photographs of fictional employees, stolen identities, and aliases, according to DOJ filings. Job listings were seeded across mainstream platforms including Upwork, Wellfound, Hubstaff Talent, and Post Job Free, where government workers browse freely. Once candidates applied, recruiters moved conversations to encrypted messaging apps including Telegram and pressured applicants to share confidential information from insider sources in violation of their official duties. Payments flowed through online accounts registered under fictitious names and through cryptocurrency transactions designed to obscure the money trail.
The sites operated for more than two years before federal action, raising pointed questions about how long Chinese intelligence services can run active-recruitment infrastructure inside U.S. hiring platforms before detection. The FBI placed warning pages on each seized domain alerting visitors that the sites had been disabled as part of a federal counterintelligence operation.
A Pattern Washington Is Moving to Break
The domain seizures arrived days after a separate CCP espionage case reached a courtroom conclusion. On June 4, Thomas Weir Pauken II, a 50-year-old American citizen who had lived in China for more than a decade while writing for Beijing's state-run propaganda outlets under the pseudonym "Tom McGregor," pleaded guilty to acting as an agent of the People's Republic of China inside the United States, the Justice Department said. From at least 2019 until February 2026, Pauken worked at the direction of individuals he knew were PRC intelligence contacts, including in efforts to obtain Department of Justice information and help launch a cyber espionage campaign. He faces up to 10 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced September 1.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton sent a letter to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on June 9, urging the DOJ to open a formal investigation into what he described as a coordinated Chinese campaign to undermine American artificial intelligence development. Cotton argued that Beijing was financing or encouraging U.S. advocacy campaigns targeting domestic data centers over energy consumption, a covert strategy designed to "kneecap" American AI infrastructure before it can surpass China's, as Fox News reported.
Taken together, the seizures, the Pauken guilty plea, and Cotton's probe request reflect a sustained counterintelligence push by the Trump administration against Chinese Communist Party operations spanning federal hiring platforms, propaganda networks, and the technology sector. Pauken's September sentencing will provide the next public marker in that effort, while federal investigators and congressional committees are pressing for full accountability from Beijing-linked networks that may still be operating inside American institutions.
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