Busted Pak firm ‘sold 1,198 fake degrees to Saudis’

RIYADH: A Pakistani firm under investigation for fraud allegedly sold 1,198 fake degrees to Saudis between 2011 and 2015, a local publication reported on Wednesday. Pakistani authorities have already arrested the owner of Axact Company, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, in Karachi for allegedly selling thousands of fake degrees to customers worldwide during this period. Saudis received 1,198 fake degrees from nonexistent universities, for between SR50,000 and SR100,000, the report stated. Axact allegedly forged the certificates, with several consulates and government offices in certain countries around the world attesting these documents. Jasim Al-Khaldi, Saudi chargé de a’ffairs in Islamabad, said the embassy and cultural mission were following up on the investigations. He said the Saudi government wants to know the names of citizens who obtained degrees from the company, and those of Pakistanis working in the Kingdom using these bogus qualifications. Khayyam Akbar, Pakistani chargé de a’ffairs in the Kingdom, said his government would provide the Saudi government with the names of its citizens with fake degrees as soon as investigations are completed. The multimillion-dollar fake degree scandal was first scooped by Arab News in 2009. Pakistan’s top investigative agencies launched a probe after the New York Times ran a report in May this year detailing what Arab News had already revealed. Arab News had followed up on a report that a certain Rochville University had awarded a master’s in business administration to a bulldog named Chester. The application had been made by the dog’s owner, Vicky Phillips, founder of GetEducated.com, in an attempt to expose the fake university. Rochville’s physical location was a mystery and Arab News learned from a courier company official in Dubai that the degree originated from Axact’s office in Karachi. When the story was published in Arab News, it received a legal threat from Axact’s lawyers, and the article had to be removed from the Internet. There was, however, no retraction in the print edition and Arab News stood by the story. -arabnews