WHAT HEELS!: Fake Diplomas For Real Terrorists?

 

When a man claiming to be a retired military officer from Syria – a country that sponsors terrorism, according to the U.S. – needed credentials as a chemical engineer that could help him get a visa to work here, he turned to James Monroe University. Just $1,277 and three a few days later, the notorious diploma mill supplied him with undergraduate and advanced degrees in chemistry and environmental engineering, based on his “life experience,” reports The New York Times:

 

Monroe was one of more than 120 fictitious universities operated by Dixie and Steven K. Randock Sr., a couple from Colbert, Wash., who sold diplomas for a price, according to a three-year federal investigation that ended in guilty pleas from the Randocks to mail and wire fraud. The inquiry into their diploma mill, which operated most often as St. Regis University, provides the most up-to-date portrait of how diploma factories can harness the rapidly evolving power of the Internet to expand their reach. …

 

The company became more inventive and bold, with revenues growing from $5,000 in 1999 to $1.65 million in 2005, and churning out more than 10,000 diplomas for customers in 131 countries. …

 

Officials say they are concerned by growth in the industry and about the potential for terrorists to use bogus degrees to obtain United States visas. 

 

The authorities shut down the operation in 2005 after its sale to the Syrian officer - who, fortunately, was a Secret Service agent. The Randocks pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud, along with six former employees who pleaded guilty to federal charges.

Posted by The Stiletto at July 2, 2008
Categories: What a Heel
 

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