EXCLUSIVE: Inside the global ghost worker industry that’s taking thousands of American tech jobs

Professionals in high-demand industries are accustomed to receiving messages from job recruiters. Often the messages are generic offers sent en masse without any apparent regard for whether the recipient has the requisite experience. Since the pandemic normalized remote work across the globe, tech workers have been getting recruited for a different type of job entirely: doing interviews under fake names for foreign companies.

“Fraudulent candidates have increased after COVID in 2020...