Think-tank claiming to be S’pore-based used AI profiles to target analysts, intelligence community

SINGAPORE – A think-tank claiming to be based in Singapore and publishing analytical reports on security issues in Asia has been using what appears to be fabricated employee profiles in an attempt to glean information from security analysts and those involved in intelligence work.

The Institute of East Asia Strategic Studies (IEASS) had approached individuals in Singapore and Taiwan, among other places, The Straits Times has learnt.

Alarm bells about IEASS were first raised by Bill Hayton, an associate fellow at British think-tank Chatham House.

In a June 30 post on social network X, he asked whether anyone had heard of the institute, which had been approaching Western security analysts.

Based on ST’s checks, the institute’s listed experts could not be identified through public records or professional databases, and some of their profile pictures appeared to have been generated using artificial intelligence.

ST also found no record of the think-tank being registered in Singapore despite a claim on its website that it was founded in the Republic in 2019.

Of the 12 people listed on its website as employees, only three maintained public LinkedIn profiles.

One is the institute’s editor, Chen Qiang, who claimed on his LinkedIn profile to have held the role since August 2018.

His LinkedIn account, set up in December 2023, had no profile picture and listed Hong Kong’s Lingnan University and the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) as his alma maters.

An MDIS spokeswoman said there were no records of Chen Qiang having been a student or of the programme he claimed he had enrolled in.

The other two people with public LinkedIn accounts operated under the names Travis Walker and Viga Oborski.

Both accounts were created in March. Their profile pictures showed young Asian men but contained visual details around the glasses and ears that are commonly associated with AI-generated images.

Facial-recognition search engine PimEyes returned no matches for either face on the internet.

Another person who claimed to be an IEASS employee but was not listed on its website is Tao Zhang, who also had a public LinkedIn profile.

Tao Zhang and Viga Oborski said on their profiles they held master’s degrees from the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), majoring in international relations and public policy.

However, an SUSS spokesperson said the university had no record of either individual ever enrolling there, adding that it does not offer such a degree programme.

All four LinkedIn accounts had published commentaries about Japan’s and Taiwan’s security policies. The accounts had been deleted as at July 15.

No physical footprint in S’pore

IEASS, on its website, had claimed its office was at Millenia Walk but did not specify a unit number.

When ST visited the shopping mall on July 6, there was no sign of it anywhere.

A check with the receptionist at the adjacent Millenia Tower also yielded no such entity.

As at July 12, IEASS had removed the address from its website, along with its phone number, which bore the +44 prefix – the country code for the United Kingdom.

Its general e-mail address was found to be invalid; the only functioning e-mail address was one for its human resources department.

Before removing its contact details, the institute had listed job openings for a remote geopolitical consultant and a recruitment specialist tasked with contacting experts and scholars via LinkedIn.

Those postings have since been taken down and replaced with a listing for a remote research contributor. The job description specified six focus areas, the majority of which centre on research about Taiwan.

The role’s other focus areas include Japan, as well as US-China relations.

ST’s attempts to contact IEASS were acknowledged, but the representative did not respond to the questions posed.

Analysts approached

Hayton told ST on July 15 that he was aware of a person working in NATO who was contacted by an IEASS representative.

The representative from IEASS, identifying himself as Walker, asked if the recipient was open to “strictly professional exchanges in your personal capacity”.

Besides suggesting off-the-record conversations, the representative noted that the institute could also commission analytical briefs for its internal clients’ use, promising the NATO employee “competitive professional fees”.

When ST asked NATO about this incident, an official said it does not comment on specific individuals or cases, adding that staff are briefed regularly on how they should engage with external contacts.

In another set of correspondence seen by ST, a foreign individual was asked to connect Walker with those working directly on national security and politics in the place where that foreign individual was based.

Muhammad Faizal Abdul Rahman, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said an unfamiliar security think-tank claiming to be based here raises immediate red flags.

This is because Singapore’s security research community is small and close-knit.

He noted that IEASS choosing Singapore as its location helps it to gain perceived legitimacy, leveraging the Republic’s standing to present itself as a reputable institution.

While AI has made it easier to fabricate personas and organisations, he noted that the modus operandi of purported think-tanks and geopolitical consultancies is not a new phenomenon.

Faizal said: “Whether they are from any particular country’s intelligence service, I would say it is very hard to say concretely. There are signs, but there is no way to say for sure.

“The major powers, in particular, or any other countries that are geopolitical rivals, are all doing this.”

A larger network

In an investigation by Max Lesser, a US-based senior analyst on emerging threats, IEASS was found to be linked to two similar organisations.

It shared nearly the same website infrastructure as Sentinel Global Affairs and Strategy (SGAS) and East Asia Strategic Insights (EASI), both of which claim to be geopolitical advisory firms, said Lesser, who works at the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

All three sites were registered between March and May, and were built with Lovable, an AI platform capable of creating apps and websites.

While EASI also claimed it was based in Singapore, SGAS listed its headquarters as being in Paris, France. Neither provided specific addresses, however.

EASI’s homepage also claimed its analysts had been quoted by major news outlets, citing mentions in Reuters, the Financial Times, Nikkei Asia and ST.

However, checks found no record of those quotes appearing in any of the four publications.

These were not the first instances of institutes or consultancies being set up to gather sensitive information.

In July 2020, Singaporean Dickson Yeo pleaded guilty in the US to acting illegally as an agent of Chinese intelligence.

Prosecutors said Yeo set up a fake consultancy and used LinkedIn to recruit individuals with access to non-public information, paying them to produce reports on geopolitical issues.

He was deported back to Singapore in December 2020 and was immediately detained under the Internal Security Act.

Yeo was released from detention the following year.