Maintaining the integrity of the scientific record is of paramount importance to the public trust in science, the usage of scientific insights in law and policy, and the efficient pursuit of further scholarship. The de-indexing of a scientific journal from indices like Web of Science and MEDLINE is a rare emergency measure if more moderate measures to ensure integrity fail. Here, we describe a new phenomenon we term “journal hopping” which undermines this measure. Following the de-indexing of a popular cancer journal, articles bearing signs of having originated from paper mills started to appear in another journal of the same publisher. Our findings hold several practical considerations on the maintenance of the integrity of the scientific record and the de-indexing of journals.