An investigation by CfA’s iLAB has identified 32 inauthentic recruitment Facebook accounts, groups and pages targeting people in Kenya. Some were created as early as 2017;
some as recently as 20 August 2020. They have titles like “Tuskys supermarket jobs” and “Quickmart supermarket jobs”.
The pages falsely claim to belong to well-known organizations and supermarkets, gas stations, and other companies known to recruit large numbers of people. They leverage
the credibility of real brands to entrap people for nonexistent jobs that require payment of ‘registration fees’ and sharing of personally identifiable information that can
further be used for malicious activities. Recently reported cases where such advertisements lure victims to interview sites where they are robbed at gunpoint accelerates
the need of identifying the culprits behind such networks.
CfA-iLAB’s analysis suggests a degree of coordination among the Facebook pages, the affiliated Facebook accounts and the Facebook group. iLAB found dozens of Facebook pages
linked to four key Facebook profiles that demonstrate several characteristics pointing to coordinated activity, including the near simultaneous publication of identical
content and account administration.. The assets also demonstrated signs of inauthenticity, as they were created to impersonate large supermarket chains in Kenya.
