Air Force warns airmen, veterans of foreign intelligence recruitment ploy

A US Air Force servicemember types on his computer at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, Feb.19, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Elizabeth Figueroa.)

WASHINGTON — The Air Force Office of Special Investigations warned airmen and former servicemembers of a “recruitment scheme” that could trick them into working for “foreign intelligence entities.”

“These aren’t just job offers, they’re intelligence operations in disguise,” Special Agent Lee Russ, executive director of AFOSI Office of Special Projects, said in a report from the office today. “Our adversaries are targeting the very people who’ve kept this nation secure.”

An unnamed counterintelligence analyst added, “These aren’t random messages. They’re calculated attempts to exploit trust.”

The AFOSI warning says the offers come in the form of social media messages that offer high-paying consulting jobs. While it’s not a new tactic, the counterintelligence analyst said it’s become “more aggressive and more refined.”

“Foreign actors reach out to service members privately, which means there’s no institutional oversight,” the analyst said in the AFOSI report. “What someone does on their personal account doesn’t necessarily have the same safeguards as an official one, and adversaries are taking advantage of that.”

The warning follows others from elsewhere in the US government and from international partners. Recently the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) reportedly said foreign spies, including Chinese intelligence specifically, were “targeting current and former U.S. government (USG) employees for recruitment by posing as consulting firms, corporate headhunters, think tanks, and other entities on social and professional networking sites.”

In June 2024, the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partnership collectively pointed the finger at China’s efforts to recruit current and former “Western military personnel to train the PRC military.”

“To overcome their shortcomings, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been aggressively recruiting Western military talent to train their aviators, using private firms around the globe that conceal their PLA ties and offer recruits exorbitant salaries,” then-NCSC Director Michael Casey said. “Recent actions by Western governments have impacted these operations, but PLA recruitment efforts continue to evolve in response.”