Yeah, did the same things. I only work with "Western", Eastern European, and Russian developers. I speak and read a bit of Russian, and sometimes screenshots are a dead giveaway. I also have the interviews, with a surprise coding and reasoning task, and ask for references.

The reality is that today, a "meatmarket" (upwork etc. al.) freelancer is good enough to throw up a nice Wordpress site with a fancy frontend. Unfortunately, the people with the skills and qualities that I look for always end up with full time jobs at some point. All my long timers now have lead-dev type jobs with large firms.