Meet whistleblower who busted fake degrees scam

[Al Bhatti]

@WebMaster @Horus or other moderators

I am not sure if it was okay to start this thread or not keeping in view the lawsuit.

--------------------------


May 20, 2015

Sayyed Yasir Jamshaid

Meet whistleblower who busted fake degrees scam
Whistleblower on Pakistani company offering face educational certificates reveals all

The man who exposed the Pakistani IT Company, Axact, for allegedly making tens of millions of dollars from selling fake online degrees, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview that he wants to help people scammed recover their money.

Speaking to Gulf News at its office in Dubai, Yasir Jamshaid called on the authorities concerned to investigate Axact’s Dubai-based company, Axact FC LLC, which he said is based in Dubai Internet City (free zone). However, the entire operation is being conducted in Karachi.

“They are misusing the facilities of this country and using it for a bad cause and I want to reveal their fraud here as well,” alleged Jamshaid, a former employee of Axact in Karachi.

Jamshaid who lives in the UAE, said he is willing to cooperate with the authorities.

Jamshaid, a Pakistani, who was born in Saudi Arabia and speaks fluent Arabic decided to quit his job after he was a witness to fraud.

“My job was to listen to phone calls between our sales agent and customers. The sales agents give themselves fake names and claim to be professors from different universities.”

Gulf News tried to contact Axact offices in Karachi, but got no response.

Jamshaid now fears for his safety, to the point that he also brought his wife and family members to the UAE recently.

“I have already received threats. My wife and family members are angry at me for exposing the story. I ran to the UAE, I am very tense because of this.”

Jamshaid, who worked at Axact as a quality assurance auditor, said his job at the company, which has around 2,000 staff was to listen and document conversations between sales agents and customers.

Gulf News had earlier unearthed the ‘fake degree mills’ targeting residents in GCC countries and warned against online ‘fake’ degree providers.

Gulf News obtained documents that showed that 99.99 per cent of the company’s shares are registered under the Dubai company’s name, Axact FC LLC. The documents showed that the company has 600,000 shares. Only one share is under the name of Shoaib Shaikh, CEO and owner of Axact, another one share is under the name of his wife, Aisha, and the remaining 599,998 are registered under Axact.

An official from the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai told Gulf News that Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is pursuing the case in Pakistan and they are in touch with them. He said they would approach the UAE authorities only after investigating authorities in Pakistan ask them to do so.

Names and accounts

Jamshaid said he has the names and accounts of some people involved in the Axact operations in Dubai and is willing to share them with authorities.

The Axact scandal surfaced this week after Jamshaid’s story was published in the New York Times revealing that Axact operates hundreds of fake online universities from its headquarters in Pakistan, making hundreds of millions of dollars online selling fake degrees to people around the world.

Following the New York Times report, the FIA raided the firm’s offices in Pakistan, confiscated computers and secured data. It also held employees for questioning. The FIA yesterday dispatched an initial report of the Axact scandal to the Interior Ministry in Pakistan. The report carries statements of at least 23 employees, data retrieved from two main servers and as many as 40 computers.

In response to the FIA raid, Axact issued an official statement on its website saying: “We request the government to order a proper judicial inquiry into these false allegations made against Axact. The inquiry being conducted right now seems to be done in haste and without lawful procedure. For instance, sealing Axact’s Islamabad office, seizure of computers, etc”.

Company reacts

The official response from the company said the quick government action “is due to the pressure from the competitor media organisations. We also fear that the way the inquiry is being conducted points to the fact that they already have a verdict against Axact in mind.”

Gulf News obtained his job contract documents as well as his work tag at Axact, proving that he was an employee at Axact.

Sales agents

He said the staff included roughly around 973 sales agents and each team, which were responsible for a number of fake universities that claim to offer fake degrees, has a target to make $40,000 (Dh146,923) per day.

The New York Times reported that there were at least at least 370 websites, many of which purport to be online universities and high schools based in the US.

Jamshaid said each sales agent will try to make at least $299 (Dh1098) a day. The agent will continue contacting the customer to try to upsell the degree (for example giving accreditation certificates, which cost more) and in sometimes even blackmail them.

“There was a woman in Al Ain, who bought 18 degrees from fake online universities in three years. I listened to the sales agent call her back claiming that she was a US government official.

“The agent claimed that government officials found out about her fake degrees. The agent told the lady she will lose her job if she does not pay Dh90,000 to cancel all 18 degrees and get one accredited degree instead, which she eventually did,”

Before doing so, Jamshaid started writing down and recording on his phone as many details as he could of the people scammed (22), who in total have paid $600,000 (around Dh22 million) in total to the company.

So far Jamshaid helped two customers from the UAE and two in Saudi and hopes on helping the rest to retrieve their money in the near future.

Meet whistleblower who busted fake degrees scam | GulfNews.com

 

[Shan-e-ibrahim]

He has security risks. Why you need to show the identity, this is ridiculous from media

 

[TheNoob]

inb4 hes in a body bag :x

 

[Al Bhatti]

21 May 2015

Axact’s Dubai office closed for 2 years
Khaleej Times visited three locations listed as Axact offices in online business directories and found only one bearing the company’s name.

In a major twist to a fake degree scam reported by the New York Times, the offices of Axact Private Limited in Dubai have remained closed for more than two years.

Khaleej Times visited three locations listed as Axact offices in online business directories and found only one bearing the company’s name. A small leased space inside a business centre managed by Tecom in Dubai Media City is all that remains of Axact’s Dubai operations.

“Nobody has visited this office in the last two years and it hasn’t been opened even once,” said a security guard working at a business centre leased by Axact.

Two chairs, an empty office desk and a telephone are visible in the glass cabin representing Axact FZ LLC.

“The owner is never here but we do receive a few couriers occasionally,” said the guard.

He could not elaborate further on whether the courier was ultimately delivered to the company’s representatives but did confirm the company was owned by a ‘Pakistani businessman’.

The company is at the centre of a vast fake degree scam, after an article in the New York Times alleged its involvement in selling fake degrees.

A post on the company’s website lists the small leased space in Dubai as the company’s head office with a news post reading, “The head office in Pakistan is in Karachi and the capital city can also boast an Axact regional office. The corporate head office is in Dubai, the city which has become the new business hub of the world.”

Officials from Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided the company’s Karachi office on Wednesday morning, seizing all electronic equipment. Law enforcement agencies across Pakistan have swung into action following the news report with summons issued to Axact officials.

According to media reports in Pakistan, six million shares of Axact Private Limited are distributed between three shareholders. Out of these total six million shares, Shoaib Ahmed Sheikh and his wife Ayesha Shoaib Sheikh have only two shares whereas the remaining 5,999,998 shares are owned by the third director — Axact LLC, based in a Dubai Free Zone.

Tecom officials could not be reached at the time of going to Press.


Axact’s Dubai office closed for 2 years - Khaleej Times

 

[livingdead]

the guy needs police protection. He should be praised for his bravery...
see heroes come in all shapes and forms, you dont need to go to gym @Armstrong.

 

[Al Bhatti]

May 21, 2015

The Dubai-based office of Axact, the Pakistani company involved in a fake degree scandal.

Dubai office of fake-degree company is registered
While still officially open, no employees appear to have ever worked in the office

The Dubai-based office of Axact — the Pakistani company involved in a fake degree scandal — is registered and “active”, according to the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority (DTMFZA).

Registration details of Axact FZ LLC show that it is registered as a consultancy.

Gulf News visited the office on Thursday and was told that while it is still officially open, no employees appear to have ever worked in the office.

When contacted, DTMFZA, the authority that issues licences to companies in Dubai free zones, said the Pakistani company has only one office that is located in Dubai Internet City, building number three.

However, the only company found under the name Axact FZ-LLC, was located in business centre three, in Thuraya 2 building, in Dubai Media City.

Gulf News visited the centre on the sixth floor of the building, which is managed by Tecom Investments and found that Axact FZ –LLC was nothing but a tiny empty room with one table and two chairs.

According to people working at the business centre, no one has ever visited or worked in the office.

“They never come here,” one worker told Gulf News.

A security guard said he had never seen anyone in the office in all the years he has worked in the centre.
The Axact scandal surfaced this week after a New York Times report revealed that Pakistani IT company, Axact, operates more than 300 fake online universities from its headquarters in Karachi, making tens of millions of dollars a year by selling fake degrees to people around the world.

Documents obtained by Gulf News shows that of the 600,000 Axact shares, one is held by Shoaib Shaikh, CEO and owner of Axact and another one is held by his wife, Ayesha, while the remaining 599,998 shares are owned by Axact FZ LLC in Dubai.

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raided the firm’s offices in Pakistan, confiscated computers and secured data this week. It also held employees for questioning.

Kamran Atta Allah, deputy director of FIA, said that required data has been collected from the company’s office to be examined by a forensic team.

FIA sources say a decision about whether to extend the probe to the Axact office in Dubai and approach the UAE authorities will be taken after completing the investigation under way in Pakistan.

An official at the Pakistan Consulate in Dubai told Gulf News that they are also looking into the matter and will approach the UAE authorities as soon as they get a request from the FIA back home.

The Revenue Board of Pakistan has also asked the company to provide details of its contract with Axact FZ LLC in Dubai.

Yasir Jamshaid, the former Axact employee who exposed the Axact scandal, called on the authorities concerned to investigate Axact’s Dubai-based company, adding that he is willing to share information that can help the investigation.

Gulf News contacted Tecom authorities, but a response was not immediately available as of press time.

Dubai office of fake-degree company is registered | GulfNews.com

 

[Al Bhatti]

Will US soldiers be court martialed for declaring fake diplomas and certificates?



---------------------------------


May 23, 2015

Pakistan widens inquiry into fake diplomas
Tax authorities have announced inquiries into Karachi-based software

Heavy scrutiny by investigators, politicians and the fractious Pakistani media sector has mounted over the past week for Axact, a Karachi-based software company that has made millions selling fake degrees through a sprawling empire of school websites.

The tax authorities, the Interior Ministry and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, among others, have announced inquiries into the company’s operations. Its Karachi headquarters and a smaller office in Islamabad were sealed after a raid by the authorities earlier in the week. The company’s founder, Shoaib Ahmad Shaikh, has been summoned to an interview with federal investigators.

Axact has thrived for more than a decade on its ability to hide links between its operation in Karachi and hundreds of fictitious online schools, many of them claiming to be American. But more such links are coming to light in the days since The New York Times published a detailed account of the company’s operations, and Axact’s chief executive has begun shifting his tack in public statements.

At first, Shaikh insisted the only link between Axact and the hundreds of fake school sites was that his company sold software to what he called “associates and partners.” In a television interview Wednesday, however, he conceded that Axact provided office-support and call-center services for those websites. Still, he continued to deny being a part of any scam.

“Axact does not issue any degree or diploma, whether real or fake,” Shaikh said in the interview.

In the past few days, the company’s array of fake online universities and high schools has gone silent. In calls and text messages to 111 websites identified as being operated by Axact, a New York Times reporter was unable to establish contact with a single sales agent.

The scandal has driven intense coverage by the Pakistani television media, much of it on stations whose owners were already at odds with Shaikh, ostensibly over his plans to start his own television network, Bol, in the coming months. Television crews have been camped outside the company’s Karachi headquarters all week.

Away from the media glare, people at differing ends of Axact’s elaborate degree scheme have continued to come forward with their accounts.

Sikander Riaz, who said he worked as a sales agent under the pseudonym Hank Moody for six weeks last summer, was one of a dozen people who contacted The New York Times to identify themselves as former Axact employees, and were able to provide consistent and detailed descriptions of the organisation.

Riaz, a 22-year-old communications student, said he had been tasked to sell degrees for Harvey University and Nixon University out of an Islamabad-based call centre for Axact.

“Our punch line was that we could give customers a degree in 10 to 15 days,” he said.

Another former employee, who asked to be identified only as Ahmad, part of his full name, expressed regret.

“I feel bad about people I ripped off,” he said. “I could never tell my family that I sold degrees that destroyed people’s lives.”

Ahmad said he averaged sales of $500,000 (Dh1.84 million) per quarter, on behalf of fake high schools with names like Belford, Lorenz and Adison, during a three-year stint at Axact. By the time he left in 2012, the company was taking in $80,000 to $100,000 a day, he said, providing copies of his pay stubs to prove he had been employed by Axact.

He said many of his early customers were young Americans seeking a high school diploma to fulfil a requirement for enlisting in the Army to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We would celebrate like crazy if we hit $125,000 a day,” he said.

Unravelling Axact’s complex system of payments and revenues — much of which former employees have said is routed through offshore companies — is one potential challenge for the seven-member government investigation team announced by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Wednesday.

Former employees said Axact used at least 20 offshore companies to process customer revenues, pay suppliers and purposefully create a shield between Axact and the financial affairs of its websites. Many of those companies the employees identified, such as EduConnect and Education SP, have their own websites and said they sell educational software.

One such firm, Connect Shift, which is registered in Cyprus, lists Shaikh as its chief executive, according to company registration records.

Axact has left some traces of US connections as well. They include mailboxes in California, Colorado and Texas, and two Bank of America accounts at a branch Florida that two former customers of Axact-run school sites said had been provided as a place to send payments.



Several accounts

By several accounts, Axact’s main financial and logistical hub outside Pakistan is in Dubai, where its holding company, Axact FZ, is located. Reporters for The Khaleej Times newspaper who visited the registered office of Axact FZ this week described a deserted glass cubicle with a desk and two chairs.

For years, former employees said, Axact’s diploma certificates were shipped to customers across the globe through a courier service in Dubai, to give the impression of being based in that city’s free trade zone. But that facade nearly collapsed in 2009, when a technology journalist from Saudi Arabia started looking more closely.

The journalist, Molouk Ba-Isa, was following up on a report that Rochville University had awarded a master’s degree in business administration to an American pug named Chester. Although Rochville’s physical location was a mystery, Ba-Isa learnt from a courier company official in Dubai that the degree originated from Axact’s office in Karachi.

But when The Arab News published her report, naming Axact, she said her editors received a strongly worded legal threat from company lawyers, and the article was removed from the internet. This week, Ba-Isa said in an email that she felt vindicated.



Former customers

Former customers of the fake online schools spoke of frustration and anger in their dealings with universities they thought were based in the United States.

Mary, a businesswoman in Dubai who wanted to be identified only by part of her name, said she spent $210,000 with Paramount California University in the hope of a genuine third-level business qualification.

“I was paying for an education, not buying a degree,” she said. “I’ve only got a high school education, so I did it for my own self worth, and nothing else.”

Mary said she and her husband enrolled for business degrees they hoped to study for at home over the winter. Instead she found herself being pursued and hectored by sales agents into making ever-greater payments for fees, registration and legalisation. As she started to suspect a fraud, her confusion turned to denial and then anger.

“I didn’t know where to turn,” said Mary, who has hired a US lawyer to help seek a refund. “People say, ‘How could you be so stupid?’ I was one of the stupid ones.”

Pakistan widens inquiry into fake diplomas | GulfNews.com

 

[Al Bhatti]

June 10, 2015

Whistleblower. Yasir Jamshaid

Axact scam: how it works

A phony BBA degree issued to an Abu Dhabi resident from the non-existent Brooklyn Park University



‘AXACT sold over 200,000 fake degrees in Gulf countries’
UAE, KSA top list of countries where clients paid up to Dh100,000 for a certificate, claims whistleblower

Not hundreds or a few thousands, but over a staggering 200,000 people from the Gulf countries bought fake online degrees and diplomas from dubious Pakistan IT firm AXACT in the past four years.

This shocking revelation comes from none other than former AXACT staff turned whistle blower Sayyad Yasir Jamshaid, the key figure in the New York Times story.

His tip-off not just led to the arrest of AXACT CEO Shoaibh Shaikh and the dramatic collapse of his global multi-billion dollar fake degree empire but also spawned a series of criminal investigations worldwide.

“At AXACT’s 24/7 Karachi headquarters, we handled roughly 5,000 calls daily. “Of them 60 per cent came from the UAE and Saudi Arabia,” Jamshed told XPRESS in a freewheeling interview.

“As one of the 110 quality assurance auditors, my job was to listen to the interactions between customers and sales agents. We had a software which filtered incoming calls from various countries. It was rendered useless as almost every second call I picked was from the Gulf.

"Between 2011 and mid 2015, AXACT issued degrees and diplomas from 350 nonexistent universities to over 200,000 Middle East residents, mostly from UAE and Saudi Arabia,” said the Pakistani.

XPRESS cannot verify Jamshaid’s claim, but independent investigations and conversations with AXACT sales agents in Pakistan show he may not be off the mark.

“We were 900 plus agents working round the clock and attending nonstop calls from GCC countries for years, so one can well imagine how many degrees were sold in these places,” an AXACT employee told XPRESS on conditions of anonymity.

A young Pakistani college dropout who was trained to speak heavily accented English said the UAE and Saudi Arabia were the company’s real cash cows.

“Most UAE clients preferred multiple degrees and would happily fork out between Dh50,000 and Dh100,000 for each certificate. “In Dubai alone I know at least a dozen professionals with up to five degrees in various disciplines. I know this because I was communicating with them in the guise of a professor from the Midtown University,” he said.

Rochville, Brooklyn Park, Gibson, Grant Town, Ashley, Nixon, Campbell, Belford, Para-mount California were among hundreds of other AXACT-owned universities popular among UAE expats and Emiratis.

XPRESS has names, credit card transaction details and payment receipts of several high-profile Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Al Ain based clients who paid ridiculous amounts to obtain degrees from such institutions, all of which existed only on stock photos and computer servers.

The glossy degrees bear attestation stamps and seals of various government entities and some are even accompanied by US State Department authentication certificates carrying the signature of John Kerry.

Money maker
According to Jamshaid, AXACT made money from three key areas – priority learning assessment (PLA), research and sponsored programmes (RSP), sale of degrees and legalisation/ attestation through embassies/ministry of foreign affairs/ ministry of higher education.

“Legalisation charges started from $5,000 and went up to $60,000. In September 2014, the month before I quit, the firm made $800,000 from PLA, $400,000 from RSP where PhD aspirants seeking help for writing theses were directed to other websites operated by AXACT. Sale of degrees accounted for $1.7 million.

From the websites and professors to glowing endorsements, video testimonials and accreditation, everything was fake. It was a well-knit racket. We even had a dedicated Google Search Engine Optimisation (SE0) team which ensured AXACT owned universities showed up in search results.”

A Dubai-based Lebanese who shelled out Dh85,000 for Gibson University’s MBA programme, said the charade was so convincing he never suspected a thing. “Who would’ve thought that the soft-spoken professor Terry Howard I interacted with for months was not a university faculty based in USA’s Virginia Islands but someone sitting in a call centre in Pakistan? I am ruined.”

Whistle blower Jamshaid, who fled to the UAE from Pakistan in the wake of death threats, says there is still hope for the victims.

“I have used my knowledge of AXACT’s protocols to help 17 UAE residents get refunds totalling $300,000.” Since the money was paid using credit cards, victims can file dispute claims with their banks,” said Jamshaid.

XPRESS has refund receipts of two UAE residents who have got their entire money back following Jamshaid’s intervention.

Among them is an Abu Dhabi-based Indian, 39, who recovered $33,300. The junior accountant was mired in debts after maxing his credit card limits and taking personal loans to fund his master’s programme in business administration from Grant University and a string of certification courses from other bogus universities.

Alarmed at the scale of the scam, Pakistan interior minister Chaudary Nisar has sought help from the Interpol and FBI.

And now with Pakistan talking about extending the investigation to the Dubai where AXACT had an office, it remains to be seen how it would impact bogus degree holders in the UAE where forging academic qualifications could land one in jail for 10 years.

‘AXACT sold over 200,000 fake degrees in Gulf countries’ | GulfNews.com

 

[qamar1990]

@WebMaster @Horus or other moderators

I am not sure if it was okay to start this thread or not keeping in view the lawsuit.

--------------------------


May 20, 2015

Sayyed Yasir Jamshaid

Meet whistleblower who busted fake degrees scam
Whistleblower on Pakistani company offering face educational certificates reveals all

The man who exposed the Pakistani IT Company, Axact, for allegedly making tens of millions of dollars from selling fake online degrees, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview that he wants to help people scammed recover their money.

Speaking to Gulf News at its office in Dubai, Yasir Jamshaid called on the authorities concerned to investigate Axact’s Dubai-based company, Axact FC LLC, which he said is based in Dubai Internet City (free zone). However, the entire operation is being conducted in Karachi.

“They are misusing the facilities of this country and using it for a bad cause and I want to reveal their fraud here as well,” alleged Jamshaid, a former employee of Axact in Karachi.

Jamshaid who lives in the UAE, said he is willing to cooperate with the authorities.

Jamshaid, a Pakistani, who was born in Saudi Arabia and speaks fluent Arabic decided to quit his job after he was a witness to fraud.

“My job was to listen to phone calls between our sales agent and customers. The sales agents give themselves fake names and claim to be professors from different universities.”

Gulf News tried to contact Axact offices in Karachi, but got no response.

Jamshaid now fears for his safety, to the point that he also brought his wife and family members to the UAE recently.

“I have already received threats. My wife and family members are angry at me for exposing the story. I ran to the UAE, I am very tense because of this.”

Jamshaid, who worked at Axact as a quality assurance auditor, said his job at the company, which has around 2,000 staff was to listen and document conversations between sales agents and customers.

Gulf News had earlier unearthed the ‘fake degree mills’ targeting residents in GCC countries and warned against online ‘fake’ degree providers.

Gulf News obtained documents that showed that 99.99 per cent of the company’s shares are registered under the Dubai company’s name, Axact FC LLC. The documents showed that the company has 600,000 shares. Only one share is under the name of Shoaib Shaikh, CEO and owner of Axact, another one share is under the name of his wife, Aisha, and the remaining 599,998 are registered under Axact.

An official from the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai told Gulf News that Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is pursuing the case in Pakistan and they are in touch with them. He said they would approach the UAE authorities only after investigating authorities in Pakistan ask them to do so.

Names and accounts

Jamshaid said he has the names and accounts of some people involved in the Axact operations in Dubai and is willing to share them with authorities.

The Axact scandal surfaced this week after Jamshaid’s story was published in the New York Times revealing that Axact operates hundreds of fake online universities from its headquarters in Pakistan, making hundreds of millions of dollars online selling fake degrees to people around the world.

Following the New York Times report, the FIA raided the firm’s offices in Pakistan, confiscated computers and secured data. It also held employees for questioning. The FIA yesterday dispatched an initial report of the Axact scandal to the Interior Ministry in Pakistan. The report carries statements of at least 23 employees, data retrieved from two main servers and as many as 40 computers.

In response to the FIA raid, Axact issued an official statement on its website saying: “We request the government to order a proper judicial inquiry into these false allegations made against Axact. The inquiry being conducted right now seems to be done in haste and without lawful procedure. For instance, sealing Axact’s Islamabad office, seizure of computers, etc”.

Company reacts

The official response from the company said the quick government action “is due to the pressure from the competitor media organisations. We also fear that the way the inquiry is being conducted points to the fact that they already have a verdict against Axact in mind.”

Gulf News obtained his job contract documents as well as his work tag at Axact, proving that he was an employee at Axact.

Sales agents

He said the staff included roughly around 973 sales agents and each team, which were responsible for a number of fake universities that claim to offer fake degrees, has a target to make $40,000 (Dh146,923) per day.

The New York Times reported that there were at least at least 370 websites, many of which purport to be online universities and high schools based in the US.

Jamshaid said each sales agent will try to make at least $299 (Dh1098) a day. The agent will continue contacting the customer to try to upsell the degree (for example giving accreditation certificates, which cost more) and in sometimes even blackmail them.

“There was a woman in Al Ain, who bought 18 degrees from fake online universities in three years. I listened to the sales agent call her back claiming that she was a US government official.

“The agent claimed that government officials found out about her fake degrees. The agent told the lady she will lose her job if she does not pay Dh90,000 to cancel all 18 degrees and get one accredited degree instead, which she eventually did,”

Before doing so, Jamshaid started writing down and recording on his phone as many details as he could of the people scammed (22), who in total have paid $600,000 (around Dh22 million) in total to the company.

So far Jamshaid helped two customers from the UAE and two in Saudi and hopes on helping the rest to retrieve their money in the near future.

Meet whistleblower who busted fake degrees scam | GulfNews.com

pakistanis are the biggest pieces of shit i ever seen in my life... sure it was wrong what axact did... but we have two cases in front of us... one of ayaan ali and rehman malik who smuggle money out of our country and on the other side a guy who brings money into the country helps the poor, has created real jobs in our country...made a really nice tv channel which also promotes our country, donates money to educate our kids...
what do the pakis do??
they go after the guy actually helping his country( not trying to say what he did is good)..

June 10, 2015

Whistleblower. Yasir Jamshaid

Axact scam: how it works

A phony BBA degree issued to an Abu Dhabi resident from the non-existent Brooklyn Park University



‘AXACT sold over 200,000 fake degrees in Gulf countries’
UAE, KSA top list of countries where clients paid up to Dh100,000 for a certificate, claims whistleblower

Not hundreds or a few thousands, but over a staggering 200,000 people from the Gulf countries bought fake online degrees and diplomas from dubious Pakistan IT firm AXACT in the past four years.

This shocking revelation comes from none other than former AXACT staff turned whistle blower Sayyad Yasir Jamshaid, the key figure in the New York Times story.

His tip-off not just led to the arrest of AXACT CEO Shoaibh Shaikh and the dramatic collapse of his global multi-billion dollar fake degree empire but also spawned a series of criminal investigations worldwide.

“At AXACT’s 24/7 Karachi headquarters, we handled roughly 5,000 calls daily. “Of them 60 per cent came from the UAE and Saudi Arabia,” Jamshed told XPRESS in a freewheeling interview.

“As one of the 110 quality assurance auditors, my job was to listen to the interactions between customers and sales agents. We had a software which filtered incoming calls from various countries. It was rendered useless as almost every second call I picked was from the Gulf.

"Between 2011 and mid 2015, AXACT issued degrees and diplomas from 350 nonexistent universities to over 200,000 Middle East residents, mostly from UAE and Saudi Arabia,” said the Pakistani.

XPRESS cannot verify Jamshaid’s claim, but independent investigations and conversations with AXACT sales agents in Pakistan show he may not be off the mark.

“We were 900 plus agents working round the clock and attending nonstop calls from GCC countries for years, so one can well imagine how many degrees were sold in these places,” an AXACT employee told XPRESS on conditions of anonymity.

A young Pakistani college dropout who was trained to speak heavily accented English said the UAE and Saudi Arabia were the company’s real cash cows.

“Most UAE clients preferred multiple degrees and would happily fork out between Dh50,000 and Dh100,000 for each certificate. “In Dubai alone I know at least a dozen professionals with up to five degrees in various disciplines. I know this because I was communicating with them in the guise of a professor from the Midtown University,” he said.

Rochville, Brooklyn Park, Gibson, Grant Town, Ashley, Nixon, Campbell, Belford, Para-mount California were among hundreds of other AXACT-owned universities popular among UAE expats and Emiratis.

XPRESS has names, credit card transaction details and payment receipts of several high-profile Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Al Ain based clients who paid ridiculous amounts to obtain degrees from such institutions, all of which existed only on stock photos and computer servers.

The glossy degrees bear attestation stamps and seals of various government entities and some are even accompanied by US State Department authentication certificates carrying the signature of John Kerry.

Money maker
According to Jamshaid, AXACT made money from three key areas – priority learning assessment (PLA), research and sponsored programmes (RSP), sale of degrees and legalisation/ attestation through embassies/ministry of foreign affairs/ ministry of higher education.

“Legalisation charges started from $5,000 and went up to $60,000. In September 2014, the month before I quit, the firm made $800,000 from PLA, $400,000 from RSP where PhD aspirants seeking help for writing theses were directed to other websites operated by AXACT. Sale of degrees accounted for $1.7 million.

From the websites and professors to glowing endorsements, video testimonials and accreditation, everything was fake. It was a well-knit racket. We even had a dedicated Google Search Engine Optimisation (SE0) team which ensured AXACT owned universities showed up in search results.”

A Dubai-based Lebanese who shelled out Dh85,000 for Gibson University’s MBA programme, said the charade was so convincing he never suspected a thing. “Who would’ve thought that the soft-spoken professor Terry Howard I interacted with for months was not a university faculty based in USA’s Virginia Islands but someone sitting in a call centre in Pakistan? I am ruined.”

Whistle blower Jamshaid, who fled to the UAE from Pakistan in the wake of death threats, says there is still hope for the victims.

“I have used my knowledge of AXACT’s protocols to help 17 UAE residents get refunds totalling $300,000.” Since the money was paid using credit cards, victims can file dispute claims with their banks,” said Jamshaid.

XPRESS has refund receipts of two UAE residents who have got their entire money back following Jamshaid’s intervention.

Among them is an Abu Dhabi-based Indian, 39, who recovered $33,300. The junior accountant was mired in debts after maxing his credit card limits and taking personal loans to fund his master’s programme in business administration from Grant University and a string of certification courses from other bogus universities.

Alarmed at the scale of the scam, Pakistan interior minister Chaudary Nisar has sought help from the Interpol and FBI.

And now with Pakistan talking about extending the investigation to the Dubai where AXACT had an office, it remains to be seen how it would impact bogus degree holders in the UAE where forging academic qualifications could land one in jail for 10 years.

‘AXACT sold over 200,000 fake degrees in Gulf countries’ | GulfNews.com

whistleblower my ***... just another piece of shit who got paid to reveal axacts doing... only to try and take down BOL TV....
he didnt do it becuase its right, he did it for money..... hes a piece of shit....
i bet you wont find a **** going against the wrong doing in our country by rehman malik or asif zardari... becuase pakistanis only like to **** people who help pakistan( even if by unlawful means).
but they dont say shit about the people who **** our country every day.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

pakistanis are the biggest pieces of shit i ever seen in my life... sure it was wrong what axact did... but we have two cases in front of us... one of ayaan ali and rehman malik who smuggle money out of our country and on the other side a guy who brings money into the country helps the poor, has created real jobs in our country...made a really nice tv channel which also promotes our country, donates money to educate our kids...
what do the pakis do??
they go after the guy actually helping his country( not trying to say what he did is good)..


whistleblower my ***... just another piece of shit who got paid to reveal axacts doing... only to try and take down BOL TV....
he didnt do it becuase its right, he did it for money..... hes a piece of shit....
i bet you wont find a **** going against the wrong doing in our country by rehman malik or asif zardari... becuase pakistanis only like to **** people who help pakistan( even if by unlawful means).
but they dont say shit about the people who **** our country every day.

Most of these BCs served Axact for years and now they "expose" it? Fuk em.

 

[waleed3601]

A modern day hero, this guy.
Good thing Azact goes down, very shameful for Pakistan though.

 

[Dubious]

I have the same opinion as @qamar1990 why isnt anyone "exposing" Zardari or going after Ayyan and her handler?

I mean sure this guy did wrong, but where was American media when Zardari and Ayyan likes were smuggling big money? Where is their whistle blower?

 

[qamar1990]

I have the same opinion as @qamar1990 why isnt anyone "exposing" Zardari or going after Ayyan and her handler?

I mean sure this guy did wrong, but where was American media when Zardari and Ayyan likes were smuggling big money? Where is their whistle blower?

they are only after this guy becuase he is bringing millions into pakistan and using that money help our poor and educate our kids, the people after axact are enemies of pakistan.

A modern day hero, this guy.
Good thing Azact goes down, very shameful for Pakistan though.

what did he do that is heroic besides stopping the flow of money into our cash stricken country???
he is a piece of shit... and any who says otherwise is a motherfucker.

 

[waleed3601]

what did he do that is heroic besides stopping the flow of money into our cash stricken country???

what he was doing was illegal. is that too difficult to get into your head? google these words 'law', 'constitution'. fake degrees breed corruption and spoil the name of our country abroad. imagine how many govt employees with these fake degrees are spoiling our country. and one more thing media didn't highlight due to sensitivity was that axact was also involved in pornography industry. still wanna defend it?

he is a piece of shit... and any who says otherwise is a motherfucker.

why so angry dude? calm down. don't get emotional and do some research instead of blindly following into shoaib ahmed's trap. he wanted people to think like this to generate sympathy for him, and that's exactly what's happening.

 

[fenku]

..Listen @5:14