FIA raids fake educational institutions, arrests three

Islamabad: The Anti-Corruption Circle (ACC) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has launched a crackdown on mafia involved in issuing fake and unregistered technical degrees on the complaint of the government’s technical training centre (NAVTTC) and arrested owners of three private technical institutions, FIA said.

Raids were conducted at fake and unregistered institutions named Modern Institute of Informatics, Johar Institute of Information Technology Islamabad, and International College of Education, the FIA’s spokesman said and added that during the raids, the owners of the mentioned institutes were arrested. The suspects mentioned in the written complaint, include Zeeshan Zahid, Umar Farooq, and Ahsan Uddin were arrested from different areas of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, he maintained.

The suspects had issued thousands of fake technical certificates, degrees and cards to the public for large sums of money. Actions were taken against the suspects based on complaint lodged by the NAVTTC with the FIA Anti-Corruption Circle. The officials engaged in the investigation of the case, said when contacted that the suspects were running fake and unregistered educational institutions and had issued hundreds of fake diplomas, certificates, and degrees from these institutions to the students or those people, especially interested to seeking job in abroad.

The suspects advertised admissions through various newspapers and social media under the names of these fake institutions. During the raids, a large quantity of fake technical degrees, certificates, cards, diplomas, and equipment for making certificates was recovered. The raiding party of ACC has recovered and seized fake seals, diploma stickers, blank certificates, letterheads and an embossing machine from the offices of those fake technical institutions.

A team of investigating officers of ACC, has initiated investigation against the educational mafia running their fake institutions for years and have issued suspects have been arrested, and investigations have begun.

On this occasion, the Director of Islamabad Zone appreciated the team's efforts for their excellent performance. The top officers of the ACC said that all fake educational documents issued by those institutes would be cancelled on top priority while the institution would be sealed if found guilty. Transparent and unbiased actions will continue against such fake and illegal institutions, Director averred.