Until recently, journal hijackers do not appear to have targeted titles from big publishers, in part because their well-known website designs made such clones easy to detect. Earlier this month, William Black, founder and CEO of PSIref, sent the evidence of a new, more sophisticated scam.

The company "Springer Global Publication" – which is not affiliated with Springer Nature – has published dozens of papers cloning the websites of journals officially published by Elsevier, Springer, the American Medical Association and more. The company had advertised a variety of services on its website, including finding a writer for research papers, editing manuscripts, developing research proposals, analyzing data and managing the peer review process. This collection of services is a classic attribute of a paper mill.

The domain of this company was registered on Sept. 18, 2024. Two associated domains, springer.uk.com and sciencedirects.com, were registered on Nov. 11, and Sept. 18, 2024, respectively. Papers published on the cloned websites appear to have content recycled from other sources. The company will most likely offer to publish papers in legitimate and reputable journals, but submitted papers will instead appear on cloned versions of the websites.