Ten days after the International New York Times published Fake Diplomas, Real Cash: Pakistani Company Axact Reaps Millions, The BBC reports that Axact's CEO, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh and four other executives have been arrested. According to today's NY Times article, "'[they] were initially charged with fraud, forgery and illegal electronic money transfers', law enforcement officials said. The charges were later expanded to include money laundering and violating Pakistan's electronic crimes act."
Axact CEO Shaikh had initially denied the charges, but after hours of questioning he led investigators to a building next to Axact's headquarters. "Inside they found a room filled with blank certificates bearing the letterheads of dozens of fake universities and high schools operated by Axact under names like Bay View, Cambell State, Oxdell and Nixon." Apparently this has been bringing several millions of dollars a month of revenue into Axact, a company that has claimed until now to be Pakistan's largest software export company.
Axact was also on the cusp of launching a new media giant, Bol. Bol has hired several leading journalists at three to four times normal salaries. According to the linked BBC article, there is some speculation that the Axact scandal gained additional traction at this moment due to rival networks wanting to stop Bol from providing competition.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @05:37AM
This is just a reaction to the overwhelming stupidity of so many employers requiring degrees for jobs that do not need degrees.
There are no jobs that do not require degrees. A degree shows that you are a free person, a Freiherr, a Liberal! Someone who can think for theirself, and not have to be told what to do down to the smallest micro-movements, like a slave or employee (See Foucault on this, in Discipline and Punish). Unless, of course, being a conservative market-obsessed libertarian, you realize that it is not the ability that gets you the job, but the credential! So all you have to do is sell the credentials! By the time they figure out that they have hired imbeciles, you and your diploma mill will be long gone! Wow, it is almost like a gypsy autobody repair scam. Or Wall Street. Bad credentials drive out good, just like bad currency drives out good. This is what capitalism does for us, in its last throes.