A shady business operated out of a British mansion is buying up scientific journals to earn millions by publishing mediocre studies

This sounds like the beginning of a murder mystery:

A shady business network apparently run by Pakistani and Indonesian citizens from a mansion on the outskirts of Birmingham, United Kingdom, has launched an attack on the Spanish scientific journal industry. The group is buying up long-standing publications and converting them into fast-money machines by increasing the price they charge researchers for publishing, in addition to increasing the number of studies published with little regard to their quality. Alberto Martín and Emilio Delgado, two University of Granada professors who have been investigating the phenomenon, compare what is happening to the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which people are secretly replaced by emotionless clones born from mysterious alien pods.

I'm surprised it took this long. Journals are broken, authors pay to publish, readers pay to read, reviewers volunteer for free. Then why is this so expensive, when the cost is just online storage??

As a condition of the sale, Moya stipulated that its founder, 80-year-old engineer Tomàs Baiget, would stay on as editor. (In 2023, Baiget publicly apologized for creating the website ArtiCulitos.com, on which he uploaded photographs of women’s butts, some of them taken without their consent.)

what?? lmao.

The engineer claims that he does not know Muhammad Haseeb and does not know if he is the owner. “In truth, no idea. I did see Muhammad’s name somewhere, but I don’t have the slightest idea what his position is,” he explains. “I vouch for the quality, ethics and good work, at least in my purview, which is Europe and the Americas.”

I see. It all tracks.