In India, fake Singapore profiles are a new front in alleged foreign influence campaigns

A “senior program manager” claiming to be from the National University of Singapore approached senior Indian journalist Aditya Raj Kaul on professional networking site LinkedIn, inviting him to write for a weekly journal.

The modus operandi involved multiple fake employees of Singapore institutions who operate across platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter as well as personal WhatsApp messages and e-mail. It is not clear if they are coordinated.One of them is Delhi-based newspaper Hindustan Times’ foreign editor Rezaul Hasan Laskar, who reported on the operation on March 29 with a colleague.

“They were very specifically looking at people who would have access to sensitive information,” Mr Laskar told ST. The list, he added, included those who work closely with the government, including several serving and retired army officials at a top think-tank. None of them are known to have responded to these messages.

Yet another alias used was a “Selina Yee”, who claimed to be from Kerry Consulting, according to screenshots seen by ST. The e-mail used was “”, which is similar to the genuine e-mail domain of Kerry Consulting of “@kerryconsulting.com”. Another offer that was received was from a “Selina Yee”, who claimed to be from Kerry Consulting, a recruitment firm. The e-mail’s address domain is very similar to the authentic e-mail domain of the firm.

Mr N. C. Bipindra, chairman of Delhi-based think-tank Law and Society Alliance, and an author of a 2021 report on Chinese influence ops in India, said the recent tactics are a “classic example” of how China’s Ministry of State Security, which conducts espionage activities, operates. “They have been found using fictitious organisations and names to lure researchers and journalists especially from South Asia and Africa to write favourable stories,” he said.

India’s security agencies have since the clash witnessed a marked uptick in efforts by China to glean information on India, the Hindustan Times’ report cited an unnamed official as saying.for allegedly passing on “sensitive information” to Chinese intelligence officers. He was granted bail that year. The case has made slow progress and the court is yet to frame charges against Mr Sharma, who has denied all allegations and described them as well as his arrest as “political vendetta”.

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