Search Page

A forger spotted in 2019 by the Ministry of Higher Education has been charged with forgery, counterfeiting and sale of official documents, fraud and money laundering. Since 2015, he had been selling fake diplomas by the thousands at €200 each. With the complicity of a taxi-ambulance driver who photographed patients' documents, he bought pre-paid cards under these false identities, which were then paid for by electronic transfers by the purchasers of the false diplomas via their own pre-paid cards.

A 23-year-old man, residing a stone's throw from Lyon, was arrested on Tuesday morning, 3 October, for trying to fool the higher education scholarship system. During the 2016-2017 school year, the young man had received government money based on the establishment he claimed to be attending the conditions he had declared. The problem was that the student had falsified his university registration document, and Crous, which manages student grants, came to realize it.

For a small fee, platforms provide university qualifications, from bachelor's to doctorate degrees. "We have seen this trend return over the past three years, even though sites from the early 2000s which sold fake diplomas had been gradually disappearing," acknowledges the founder of VerifDiploma, which verifies the authenticity of job candidates’ diplomas on behalf of Human resources services. Each year, his company checks 50,000 applications. Of these, 8% contain false diplomas.

In South Africa, an incident at a school in Soweto revived the debate over false teacher qualifications. This week, a former primary school teacher stabbed a director who had suspended him. The teacher was dismissed after the school discovered, following a complaint from parents, that he had lied about his qualifications and had no diploma. According to the South African Council of Educators, dozens or even hundreds of teachers lie about their qualifications.

Fascinated by easy money, the members of the family who have ruled over Syria since 1970 also love collecting university qualifications obtained through dishonest and violent means. The various degrees held by the members of the family, including in medicine, law, engineering and pharmaceuticals, were not won thanks to their hard work, but rather thanks to money and the abuse of power.

One of the biggest Chinese illegal immigrant networks ever discovered in France was centred on a private business school based in the XVth arrondissement. This network made it possible to channel between 500 and 1000 Chinese immigrants into France annually, mostly young men between the ages of 20 and 25. Once in France, fake certificates attesting to their student status, report cards and diplomas allowed them to establish themselves permanently, without ever having to set foot in a classroom.

At the end of November, for the first time, 500 of INSA Toulouse most recent graduates received a secure card which attested to the authenticity of their engineering degree at their graduation ceremony. The aim of the operation is to fight against cheating and forgery. The cards given to the students are protected against forgery by a nanoparticle marker which is invisible to the naked eye.

In India, university fraud is a national sport, practiced at all levels. Beginning with the former prime minister up to the former Delhi justice minister who allegedly fakes his qualification in … law. The increase in fake qualifications is undoubtedly linked to the lack of universities in the country, with some of the harshest selection processes in the world. Leaving the country to study overseas is so expensive that counterfeit diplomas from international universities abound.

For thousands of young Syrians it has become impossible to pursue university studies in a country threatened by civil war. In order to begin a new life abroad, students buy therefore fake diplomas. A business that is increasing in the neighboring Turkey.

Another case of “fake diplomas” was discovered at the University of Lyon. The commercialization of fake diplomas is exploding, whether in Chinese or Anglo-Saxon universities or on the Web where anything can be bought. After Toulon in 2009, where Chinese students of the University Institute of Business Administration had purchased their diplomas, in Lyon this year the University is suspected of having granted degrees in communication to dozens of West Indians students who had never set foot in the city.