Pakistani firm at the center of a global fake degree scam. Seen from the Internet, it is a vast education empire: hundreds of universities and high schools, with elegant names and smiling professors at sun- dappled American campuses. Their websites, glossy and assured, offer online degrees in dozens of disciplines, like nursing and civil engineering. There are glowing endorsements on the CNN i. Academic Leadership; Academic Support; Academics; Accounting; Administrative; Admissions. When you choose a career with Laureate International Universities. Report website, enthusiastic video testimonials, and State Department authentication certificates bearing the signature of Secretary of State John Kerry. Advertisement“We host one of the most renowned faculty in the world,” boasts a woman introduced in one promotional video as the head of a law school. The news reports are fabricated. The professors are paid actors. The university campuses exist only as stock photos on computer servers. The degrees have no true accreditation. In fact, very little in this virtual academic realm, appearing to span at least 3. Pakistani software company. That company, Axact, operates from the port city of Karachi, where it employs more than 2,0. Pakistan’s largest software exporter, with Silicon Valley- style employee perks like a swimming pool and yacht. Axact does sell some software applications. But according to former insiders, company records and a detailed analysis of its websites, Axact’s 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. Advertisement. 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. At Axact’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.
To boost profits, the sales agents often follow up with elaborate ruses, including impersonating U. S. All the while, Axact’s role as the owner of this fake education empire remains obscured by proxy Internet services, combative legal tactics and a chronic lack of regulation in Pakistan.“Customers think it’s a university, but it’s not,” said Yasser Jamshaid, a quality control official who left Axact in October. In the letter, it issued a blanket denial, accusing a Times reporter of “coming to our client with half- cooked stories and conspiracy theories.”In an interview in November 2. Pakistan’s media sector, Axact’s founder and chief executive, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, described Axact as an “I. T. There’s a long client list,” he said, but declined to name those clients. The accounts by former employees are supported by internal company records and court documents reviewed by The Times. The Times also analyzed more than 3. Axact’s digital fingerprints. In academia, diploma mills have long been seen as a nuisance. Sales Agent at Flexsource International: Education: Karachi University. Learn2Lead National Leadership Program. International Sales Leadership Program Axact KarachiBut the proliferation of Internet- based degree schemes has raised concerns about their possible use in immigration fraud, and about dangers they may pose to public safety and legal systems. In 2. 00. 7, for example, a British court jailed Gene Morrison, a fake police criminologist who claimed to have degree certificates from the Axact- owned Rochville University, among other places. Little of this is known in Pakistan, where Axact has dodged questions about its diploma business and has portrayed itself as a roaring success and model corporate citizen.“Winning and caring” is the motto of Shaikh, who claims to donate 6. Axact’s revenues to charity, and last year announced plans for a program to educate 1. Pakistani children by 2. Shaikh is working to become Pakistan’s most influential media mogul. For almost two years, Axact has been building a broadcast studio and aggressively recruiting prominent journalists for Bol, a television and newspaper group scheduled to start this year. Just how this ambitious venture is being funded is a subject of considerable speculation in Pakistan. Axact has filed several pending lawsuits, and Shaikh has issued vigorous public denials, to reject accusations by media competitors that the company is being supported by the Pakistani military or organized crime. What is clear, given the scope of Axact’s diploma operation, is that fake degrees are likely providing financial fuel for the new media business.“Hands down, this is probably the largest operation we’ve ever seen,” said Allen Ezell, a retired FBI agent and author of a book on diploma mills who has been investigating Axact. Many sites link to the same fictitious accreditation bodies and have identical graphics, such as a floating green window with an image of a headset- wearing woman who invites customers to chat. There are technical commonalities, too: identical blocks of customized coding, and the fact that a vast majority route their traffic through two computer servers run by companies registered in Cyprus and Latvia. Five former employees confirmed many of these sites as in- house creations of Axact, where executives treat the online schools as lucrative brands to be meticulously created and forcefully marketed, frequently through deception. The professors and bubbly students in promotional videos are actors, according to former employees, and some of the stand- ins feature repeatedly in ads for different schools. The sources described how employees would plant fictitious reports about Axact universities on i. Report, a section of the CNN website for citizen journalism. Although CNN stresses that it has not verified the reports, Axact uses the CNN logo as a publicity tool on many of its sites. Social media adds a further patina of legitimacy. Linked. In contains profiles for purported faculty members of Axact universities, like Christina Gardener, described as a senior consultant at Hillford University and a former vice president at Southwestern Energy, a publicly listed company in Houston. In an email, a Southwestern spokeswoman said the company had no record of an employee with that name. The heart of Axact’s business, however, is the sales team — young and well- educated Pakistanis, fluent in English or Arabic, who work the phones with customers who have been drawn in by the websites. They offer everything from high school diplomas for about $3. It’s a very sales- oriented business,” said a former employee who, like several others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared legal action by Axact. A new customer is just the start. To meet their monthly targets, Axact sales agents are schooled in tough tactics known as upselling, according to former employees. Sometimes they cold- call prospective students, pretending to be corporate recruitment agents with a lucrative job offer — but only if the student buys an online course. A more lucrative form of upselling involves impersonating U. S. But in Middle Eastern countries, Axact officials sell the documents — some of them forged, others secured under false pretenses — for thousands of dollars each.“They would threaten the customers, telling them that their degrees would be useless if they didn’t pay up,” said a former sales agent who left Axact in 2. Axact tailors its websites to appeal to customers in its principal markets, including the United States and oil- rich Persian Gulf countries. One Saudi man spent more than $4. Jamshaid, the former employee. Usually the sums are less startling, but still substantial. One Egyptian man paid $1. Nixon University and a certificate signed by Kerry. He acknowledged breaking ethical boundaries: His professional background was in advertising, he said in a phone interview, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid potential legal trouble. But he was certain the documents were real. It was so impressive.”Real- Life Troubles. Many customers of degree operations, hoping to secure a promotion or pad their r. Some have been caught. In the United States, one federal prosecution in 2. State and Justice departments, held qualifications from a non- Axact- related diploma mill operation based in Washington state. Some Axact- owned school websites have previously made the news as being fraudulent, though without the company’s ownership role being discovered. In 2. 01. 3, for instance, Drew Johansen, a former Olympic swim coach, was identified in a news report as a graduate of Axact’s bogus Rochville University. The effects have sometimes been deeply disruptive. In Britain, the police had to re- examine 7. Morrison, the falsely credentialed police criminologist and Rochville graduate, had worked on. One nurse at a large hospital in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, admitted to spending $6. Axact- issued medical degree to secure a promotion. But there is also evidence that many Axact customers are dupes, lured by the promise of a real online education. Elizabeth Lauber, a bakery worker from Bay City, Michigan, had been home- schooled, but needed a high school diploma to enroll in college. In 2. 00. 6, she called Belford High School, which had her pay $2. Weeks later, while waiting for the promised coursework, Lauber was surprised to receive a diploma in the mail. But when she tried to use the certificate at a local college, an official said it was useless. Instead, he received a cheap tablet computer in the mail — it featured a school logo but no education applications or coursework — followed by a series of insistent demands for more money. When a phone caller who identified himself as a U. S. Embassy official railed at Mohan for his lack of an English- language qualification, he agreed to pay $7,5. Global Institute of English Language Training Certification, an Axact- run website. In a second call weeks later, the man pressed Mohan to buy a State Department authentication certificate signed by Kerry. Mohan charged $7,5.
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