Investigative journalism is a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You start with a bunch of jumbled pieces and slowly, they come together to form a picture.

Watchdog journalism is vital for any democracy. It has the power to call people to account, exposing corruption and abuses of power. From Upton Sinclair’s exposé on the meatpacking industry to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposing Watergate, this type of reporting has had significant impact.

Fraudulent Academic Credentials

Fraudulent academic credentials are a billion-dollar business, with millions of people worldwide purchasing fake degrees and certificates. From a lone operator with a printer in New York City’s Chinatown to a ready-to-order online operation, the world of fake diplomas is diverse and growing.

Degree mills, once the province of a few lone operators making certificates on their kitchen tables and selling them on matchbook covers, have gone high-tech with slick websites, chat rooms, edu suffixes on their domain names, and pseudo-accrediting bodies that cite rigorous — but undefined – standards. In this billion-dollar industry, it is possible to acquire a bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate degree without attending classes, without taking exams and with no work at all.

It is also easy to fake a college transcript in order to acquire one of these fake degrees. And if you get caught, it’s a white-collar crime with consequences including jail time.

To see how easy it is to obtain a fake university degree, Marketplace teamed up with former FBI agent Allen Ezell to purchase one from Almeda University, an online school that offered a PhD in biblical counseling. Using an alias, Lack provided Almeda University with backstory over the phone and then qualified for the degree by providing some of his professional credentials.

Diploma Mills Investigation

The fake diploma industry is a billion-dollar enterprise, according to experts. Marketplace investigated one of the most prolific players, a Pakistan-based diploma factory called Axact, by examining business records, analyzing customer information and cross-referencing social media profiles. In the end, we found many Canadians who may have purchased degrees from this fake school and try this site https://lambang-toanquoc.com/.

While there are laws against selling and misrepresenting fraudulent credentials, it’s still a tricky legal issue to prosecute diploma mills. The thorny problem has drawn the attention of UNESCO, the FBI and federal prosecutors, the Department of Education, the Federal Trade Commission and education ministries around the world. But it remains a challenge for investigators to root them out, even with the help of a growing number of watchdog groups.

Moreover, many of these fake schools have names that are eerily similar to those of legitimate institutions. As a result, it can be difficult for a background check to identify them. Professional background screeners are like detectives and they use their training to identify red flags in an applicant’s educational history.

In addition to a suspiciously similar name, other clues to a potential fraud include an unlisted address and a website that does not list the location of the university. Visiting these universities in the real world, as our reporters did with New World Mission Dunamis International University in Cape Town and Northern Ireland Institute of Business Technology in Belfast, is another important step to expose diploma mills.

Integrity of Educational Qualifications

Investigative journalism is an art that takes dogged persistence and a deep understanding of how to uncover patterns and anomalies. It requires a vast array of skills including document analysis, interviewing on-the-record and anonymous sources, subscription-based research tools, and more. It’s often slow and labor-intensive work, but can reveal the truth that holds powerful people, politicians, criminals, corporations, and governments accountable for their actions.

For example, when Marketplace investigated the biggest diploma mill Axact, they obtained business records and cross-referenced personal information to confirm that customers were genuinely interested in purchasing fake degrees. The team also travelled to the locations of fake universities like New World Mission Dunamis International University in South Africa and Northern Ireland Institute of Business Technology in London to establish their authenticity and see how they operated.

The impact of diploma mills is twofold, Gollin says: They devalue legitimate degrees that students spend years and thousands of dollars to earn. And they can put the public at risk when professionals like engineers and doctors lack proper training.

This is why investigative journalism is so important. Whether it’s the Watergate scandal that rocked America or the recent Nobel Peace Prize winners Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for their fight for freedom of expression in Russia and Philippines, it has the power to expose corruption and make our world a safer place.

Counterfeit Degrees Exposed

The business of bogus degrees is flourishing, with the world-wide industry doing an estimated $7 billion a year. The industry’s exploding growth is at least partly due to the ease with which people can now obtain fraudulent diplomas. But the industry also thrives because people want to work and make money, so they lie on their resumes with phony degrees, even though doing so is often dangerous for them.

The profit motive of degree mills is a major reason why they continue to operate, even in the face of increasing scrutiny from authorities. A fake university can sell thousands of degrees a year for relatively little overhead, as the scammers can produce degrees inexpensively by using computer software and outsourcing their actual staffing to international suppliers. Some of these phony schools even advertise in legitimate newspapers and magazines, such as the Economist USA Today, Forbes, Psychology Today, Discover, Investors Business Daily, and regional editions of Time and Newsweek.

Declan Walsh, the investigative journalist who uncovered Axact’s fake degree empire, recently shared with reporters from around the world documents that he had found as part of his investigation, including scans of registration papers for mailboxes belonging to Belford High School and Belford University in Texas and California, a letter from the bogus International Accreditation Organization, and screenshots of Axact’s internal publication. Several of these documents have been used by the BBC to compile the documentary, File on 4: Degrees of Deception, which is broadcast this week on the Radio 4 show, ‘File on Four’.

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