The Opening
Confidential. A word that tells you nothing. That's the point. Millions of job seekers would never know what was behind it. Until now.
Three weeks before this case published, I discovered scammers were using a LinkedIn company page called "Confidential" as their employer to list fake jobs. It gets worse. They could jump onto jobs that already had a job poster attached and add themselves to the hiring team. That puts a fake recruiter between a real job and a real applicant. The goal is to intercept resumes for phishing and other forms of fraud.
The Confidential page had 1,040 jobs listed. Many of them had fake profiles attached to the hiring team. The page had over two million followers — two million people being fed jobs from a page that claims 2 to 10 employees.
"Most, if not all, of the fake profiles in this file are gone. They came down after I published the case. That's why this document exists. The profiles are deleted. The screenshots are the proof they were there, what they looked like, and whose faces they stole."
The Exhibits — 15 Documented Profiles & Pages
Red Flags: Cisse Richard
- Profile photo is a licensed stock image (Shutterstock #2144709363)
- Claims Senior Vice President at Confidential and The University of Texas at Austin
- 5 connections. 4 jobs posted. London Area, United Kingdom (Remote)
- Posts asking job seekers to send connection requests so he can "support" their job search
Exhibits 1 & 2 — Case file, pg. 2
Samuel Andrew's photo belongs to Marc Williams, Managing Partner of the West Virginia office of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP. His fake profile claimed Google and Cornell University ILR School, had 3 connections, and posted the same script: "Hello, please connect with me. I'd be happy to support you in your job search."
Exhibit 3 — Case file, pg. 3
Exhibits 4 & 5 — Case file, pg. 4
"Career Strategist." "Executive Talent Matchmaker." "Building Future-Ready Teams." Four connections. Located in Ohio. Hiring for a Sales Representative in London plus 8 other jobs, all posted 11 hours before the screenshot. The banner is a generic "We Are Hiring" graphic.
Red Flags: John Clement
- Same headshot tied to a different name ("John Lewis - Executive Recruiter") elsewhere online
- 4 connections, 9 active jobs
- Lives in Ohio, recruits for London
- Buzzword headline with no real employer history
Exhibits 6 & 7 — Case file, pg. 5
The name is Brian. The face is a woman. The banner can't decide either — it says "Brain Cole." It also reads "Global Recuitment service," "RECUITERMENT," "delivering mesurable," and "Suite And Vp success." Five errors on one banner for a Senior Executive in Human Resources who claims Harvard.
The photo is Shutterstock again. Asset ID 1972000787 — "Stylish confident adult 50 years old Asian female psychologist standing arms crossed." Uploaded May 10, 2021. They used it twice: once for the profile picture, once in the banner.
The photo came from a UK branding photographer's portfolio — a personal branding shoot for a real woman. Her photos were lifted and turned into a recruiter who doesn't exist.
Red Flags: Ms. Aniya Langosh V
- Photo stolen from a real person's professional branding portfolio (akpbrandingstories.co.uk)
- 12 connections, 13 active jobs across multiple countries
- Grammar error in profile headline
- Claims Google and University of Toronto with no verifiable history
Exhibits 8 & 9 — Case file, pg. 6
Exhibit 10 — Case file, pg. 7
Another listing. Another hiring team. Ms. Aniya Langosh V shows up again. So does "Jonny Smith." The third is "Hammad Ereks," Executive Recruiter at Randstad USA — with a photo of a woman.
This is how the network works. The same fake profiles rotate across dozens of jobs. A job seeker sees three recruiters and thinks the role is real. They're not looking at a team. They're looking at a trap with three doors.
Why This Matters
A fake recruiter on a hiring team gets direct messages from applicants. Applicants send resumes, phone numbers, and home addresses. That's everything a scammer needs for phishing, fake onboarding, and identity theft.
"Jonny Smith" is a Senior Technical Recruiter at Evolve ESolutions LLC. Also at Confidential. Education at CCS (Chaudhary Charan Singh) University. Location: United States Minor Outlying Islands — a group of mostly uninhabited U.S. territories. Five connections. Hiring for a Product Manager in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, plus 91 others.
The name is Jonny. The face is a woman. The picture was stolen from Louise Pinkerton.
Red Flags: Jonny Smith
- Profile photo stolen from a real LinkedIn member
- Location listed as a group of mostly uninhabited U.S. islands
- 5 connections running 92 active job listings
- Two employers listed simultaneously, one of them "Confidential"
Exhibit 11 — Case file, pg. 8
Exhibit 12 — Case file, pg. 9
Exhibits 13 & 14 — Case file, pg. 10
"Linda Yeith" is a People-First Recruiter. Building Careers, Not Just Filling Roles. 23 connections. Hiring a Technical Support Specialist, remote in the United States, plus 35 others.
The photo belongs to Julie Moore Wolfe, the Mayor of Decatur, Illinois — her official portrait from the City of Decatur staff directory. Scammers put a sitting mayor's face on a fake recruiter and pointed it at job seekers.
Exhibit 15 — Case file, pg. 11
Here is Confidential. Staffing and Recruiting. Vancouver. 2 to 10 employees. Over 2 million followers. 1,040 job openings.
Ten employees can't run a thousand jobs. They don't have to. The fake profiles do the work. The page gives them a name that sounds legitimate and explains away every question. Who's the company? It's confidential. Why can't I find them? It's confidential.
Evidence Summary
Evidence summary — Case file, pg. 12
Job and connection counts are as shown on each profile at the time of capture.
| Fake Profile | Claimed Title | Whose Face It Really Is | Jobs | Connections |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel Andrew | Senior HR Recruiter | Marc Williams, Managing Partner, Nelson Mullins (WV) | 1 | 3 |
| Cisse Richard | SVP at Confidential | Shutterstock #2144709363 | 4 | 5 |
| John Clement | Career Strategist | Same face labeled "John Lewis, Executive Recruiter" | 9 | 4 |
| Brian Cole | Senior Executive HR | Shutterstock #1972000787 | 10 | n/a |
| Ms. Aniya Langosh V | Senior TA Specialist | UK branding shoot (akpbrandingstories.co.uk) | 13 | 12 |
| Jonny Smith | Senior Technical Recruiter | Louise Pinkerton | 92 | 5 |
| Eric William | Executive Director HR | Not yet traced | 4 | 5 |
| Linda Yeith | Recruiter | Julie Moore Wolfe, Mayor of Decatur, IL | 36 | 23 |
Also seen on hiring teams: "Olivia Stone" and "Hammad Ereks." Investigation continuing.
To Job Seekers
A company name is not a company. If the employer is "Confidential" and the recruiter has five connections, stop. Reverse image search the face. Don't send a resume, an ID, or your phone number to anyone you can't verify. Every profile in this file asked for connection requests. Every one of them was a door into a scam.
To LinkedIn
Every job on the Confidential page needs to be reviewed for legitimacy — meaning they come down until they're cleared and safe for job seekers to apply to. There are countless bot accounts inside. The profiles in this file are gone. The page that gave them a home is still the problem.