ISLAMABAD:
Federal Interior Minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, on Tuesday took notice of New York Times’ report regarding the selling of fake degrees by a Pakistani IT firm, according to local media sources.
NYT revealed that Axact, a Pakistani firm, is involved in a worldwide scam of selling fake degrees, making millions of dollars at the cost of Pakistan’s reputation, sources claimed.
According to a local media outlet, the minister has directed Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to kick off an enquiry to determine authenticity of the report.
The report also echoed in the Senate today where Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, a veteran lawyer and senior leader of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) raised the issue and urged the federal government to clear its position, according to sources.
The debate prompted Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani to refer the issue to a relevant committee of the Senator.
Background
Authored by Declan Walsh, former Islamabad bureau chief of the US-based paper, the report said that the company operates from Karachi, where it employs over 2,000 people and calls itself Pakistan’s largest software exporter, with Silicon Valley-style employee perks like a swimming pool and yacht, sources stated.
The report said the company does sell some software applications but according to former insiders, company records and a detailed analysis of its websites, its main business has been to take the centuries-old scam of selling fake academic degrees and turn it into an Internet-era scheme on a global scale.
As interest in online education is booming, the company is aggressively positioning its school and portal websites to appear prominently in online searches, luring in potential international customers, it claimed.
At company’s headquarters, former employees say, telephone sales agents work in shifts around the clock. Sometimes they cater to customers who clearly understand that they are buying a shady instant degree for money. But often the agents manipulate those seeking a real education, pushing them to enroll for coursework that never materializes, or assuring them that their life experiences are enough to earn them a diploma, authorities claimed.
To boost profits, the sales agents often follow up with elaborate ruses, including impersonating American government officials, to persuade customers to buy expensive certifications or authentication documents, reportedly.
“A more lucrative form of upselling involves impersonating American government officials who wheedle or bully customers into buying State Department authentication certificates signed by Secretary Kerry,” the report said.
Revenues, estimated by former employees and fraud experts at several million dollars per month, are cycled through a network of offshore companies.
However, the company in its official response condemned the news item as “baseless, substandard, maligning, defamatory, and based on false accusations and merely a figment of imagination published without taking the company’s point of view.”
The IT company said that it will be pursuing strict legal action against the publication.
Again I shall return to the theme of law and order, but first begin by acknowledging that the security services have started doing a stellar job and there appears to be a clear focus and determination on being very tough on major criminals. Recently, there was the AXACT financial fraud (I shall operate on the working assumption that indeed such a fraud did occur on a large scale). Clearly then, this is also a major crime and the question becomes what to do with the perpetrators of this fraud. By now, no one would be surprised were I to suggest execution of the top 2 or 3 criminals associated to this crime. A high profile case like this is exactly the sort of major crime where unambiguous messages need to be sent by the state. Convicted major criminals should understand that capital punishment will no longer be a theoretical possibility but a practical inevitability.
Everyone has options. Right now enough misinformation still exists that consumers remain easily persuaded by degree scams. Get the resources you need to make informed decisions. And go with your gut instincts: if you have a bad feeling about some promise an online college is making. its most likely a sham.
Hope no more person will be fooled again in this kind of trickery.
I think you've made some truly interesting points.Keep up the
good work.
I always read this type of news. Why don't Government make a strict rules for fake degree?
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