A small Australian consultancy firm, Horizzen, was unknowingly impersonated by a fake online entity, which has now been seized by the US Department of Justice. This action is part of an ongoing multi-agency investigation into alleged Chinese espionage.
From mid-2025, Horizzen began receiving emails and calls from individuals applying for vague jobs in the United States, despite the Brisbane-based firm not hiring. The fake consultancy used Horizzen's company name, business address, phone number, and content, but with a different design.
In June, Horizzen discovered the scale of the deception when the website falsely assuming its identity was seized. Western intelligence agencies allege this is a systematic campaign by Chinese spies to recruit individuals to reveal valuable secrets.
The FBI obtained a warrant to seize the website impersonating Horizzen, along with 12 other websites accused of targeting US citizens with valuable knowledge. A senior FBI officer alleged in court that all 13 seized websites were created to recruit individuals in the United States to obtain sensitive and possibly classified information for monetary payments on China's behalf.
The FBI agent stated that the websites employed aliases, stolen identities, and AI-generated photographs to deceive applicants. Roman Rozhavsky, the FBI's assistant director for counter-intelligence, alleged that the seized websites "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." The Chinese embassy in Canberra has rejected this claim, stating it has "no factual basis and is purely smears and denigration."