A court in the US has sentenced Axact Vice President Umair Hamid to 21 months in prison and fined him $5,303,020 “for his role in an international diploma mill scheme operated through the Pakistani company”, according to a Geo News report on Tuesday.
According to the US Department of Justice’s website, Hamid pleaded guilty on April 6, 2017, to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. “He entered the guilty plea before a US District judge who imposed today’s sentence,” the report said.
Hamid was arrested on Dec 19, 2016, and was produced in a federal court in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, the following day.
According to the Justice Department, Hamid was involved in running a “massive diploma mill” through Axact. The mill tricked people from across the world into enrolling in supposed high schools, colleges and universities. “Consumers paid upfront fees, believing that in return they would be enrolled in real educational courses and, eventually, receive legitimate degrees. Instead, consumers received no instruction and worthless diplomas,” the website says.
“Hamid, who served most recently as Axact’s Assistant Vice President of International Relations, helped Axact conduct the fraud in the United States, among other locations. On Axact’s behalf, he served as the primary contact during negotiations with a former competitor for Axact’s acquisition of websites for fake educational institutions. Under Axact’s control, those websites then continued to deceive consumers into paying upfront enrollment fees for non-existent educational programs,” according to the website.
The Department of Justice said that Hamid continued to travel to US in 2016 “to open a bank account used to collect money from defrauded consumers” and conduct fraudulent business as he was not arrested after Pakistani authorities shut down Axact and arrested various individuals associated with it.
In May 2015, Axact was shut down by Pakistani law enforcement agencies, and certain individuals associated with Axact were prosecuted in Pakistan. Nevertheless, after May 2015, Hamid resumed his alleged fraudulent business of selling fake diplomas to consumers in the United States for upfront fees based upon false and fraudulent representations.
According to the Geo News report, Axact promoted and claimed to have an affiliation with approximately 350 fictitious high schools and universities, which Axact advertised online to consumers as genuine schools. During certain time periods since 2014, Axact received approximately 5,000 phone calls per day from individuals seeking to purchase Axact products or enroll in educational institutions supposedly affiliated with Axact.
At least some of those consumers appeared to believe that they were calling phone numbers associated with the respective schools. When consumers asked where the schools were located, sales representatives were instructed to give fictitious addresses.
