Chaudhry Nisar orders inquiry into Axact scandal
Senate takes up issue, says Axact's management must provide explanation. PHOTO COURTESY: FORBES
ISLAMABAD: Taking notice of the Axact scandal, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar ordered Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Tuesday to probe into the special report published by The New York Times immediately, Express News reported.
Axact, that has pledged to build a media empire faced tough criticism on Monday after
The New York Times said it was earning tens of millions of dollars by selling fake degrees around the world.
The interior minister directed FIA to investigate the issue of fake degrees. Nisar took notice of the NYT which clamed that Axact ran a fake education empire that involved paid actors promoting fictitious universities and even fake State Department authentication certifications bearing the signature of John Kerry, the article said.
The report, which quoted former employees and analysed more than 370 websites of fake universities, accreditation bodies and other purported institutions, sparked a wave of criticism on social media even as the company denied wrongdoing.
On Tuesday, the issue was also taken up in the Senate where Senator Aitzaz Ahsan said that the management of company has the right to give explanation.
“It is shameful to hear such kind of news. Unfortunately, it is linked to Pakistanis ,” the senator said.
He said it can damage the reputation of Pakistanis internationally, hence the matter needs to be investigated. Ahsan termed the issue as ‘sensitive’.
The session in the Senate was chaired by Chairman Raza Rabbani and a committee was constituted to probe into the issue and submit a report in a month.
Soon after the report was published, a
message on Axact’s website declared the story “baseless, substandard, maligning, defamatory, and based on false accusations” and added it would sue
The New York Times.
The company has said it will launch a news channel named Bol this year, which has already lured many of Pakistan’s top TV anchors and journalists with reportedly the highest salaries in the market.
According to the report, Axact created a series of fake websites involving “professors” and students who were in fact paid actors.
The “university” websites mainly route their traffic through servers run by companies registered in Cyprus and Latvia, and employees would plant fictitious reports about Axact universities on CNN iReport, a website for citizen journalism.
The article cited clients from the US, Britain and the United Arab Emirates who had paid sums ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars for their degrees — with some believing the universities were real and they would soon receive coursework.
Chaudhry Nisar orders inquiry into Axact scandal - The Express Tribune
CNN Removes iReport Videos Linked to ‘Breathtaking Scam’
By
Mark Joyella on May. 18, 2015
CNN has removed user-generated videos iReport videos linked to a Pakistani company suspected of running one of the world’s largest diploma mills.
The company, Axact, was featured in
a report in The New York Times. In the report, a retired FBI agent describes the company’s educational offerings as “a breathtaking scam.”
The Times reviewed the company’s websites, which used iReport videos and the iconic CNN logo to suggest the company was legitimate:
The sources described how employees would plant fictitious reports about Axact universities on iReport, 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.
Those videos have now been removed, and a producer’s note reads “this iReport has not been verified by CNN. It reportedly contained false and misleading claims. It has been pulled for violating our site’s Terms of Use.”
CNN Removes iReport Videos Linked to ‘Breathtaking Scam’ | TVNewser
