I employed an Account Execs (sales people) last year who paid for virtual assistants (out of pocket) to do 50% of their daily work. I didn't find out about it until after we let him go due to performance issues. Apparently virtual assistants don't make great sales people.

I've also employed an engineer with multiple jobs (3 total). He's an active HN reader. I (sadly) wish they would have at least tried to outsource their work rather than not do the work at all and miss all their deadlines.

you mean like USA Federal work, outsourced via corporate consulting offices to the UK in turn outsourced to India ? because the insane requirements to sign a contract with the US Federal Agency eliminate almost anyone, even actual business people with staff who have the skills ? like that?

No, I mean "you work remote" as western guy (US, Europa) but you hire a guy in India or China by yourself. Instead you do your work, a guy with a lower salary does the job, you keep the difference and your company thinks you would do the work.

There have been documented cases of that happening. One story I read, the employee only got found out because there was unusual VPN activity. Such as valid logins from (possibly?) Chinese IPs.