The Delhi Police has busted fake degrees scam with the arrest of four people who offered various degrees, including that of MBBS, for small sum of money. While an MBBS degree cost around Rs 2 lakh, for a PHD degree, one was asked to shell out anything between Rs 55,000 and Rs 1 lakh. The charge varied from course to course depending on the State boards.
According to West Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijay Kumar, four persons identified as Rupesh Kumar (27), Rithesh Kumar (29), Someer Sharma (36), and Mukesh Thakur (27) have been arrested.
The tech-savvy crooks ran their fake business via a website icse.in, which offered admission to various courses across colleges and universities. In the garb of an educational consultancy firm located at Janakpuri, the accused used to trap the students with brochures and pamphlets of various colleges and universities across India.
Police have recovered more than 200 marksheets and suspect that the accused published nearly 2,000 fake marksheets and degrees for distribution.
Interestingly, the scamsters had started accepting payments through PayTM after the demonetisation. The accused confessed that they were facing trouble in receiving payments for the forged degrees.
A senior police officer privy to the investigation said the arrested persons worked at middle level of the racket and police suspect that two top bosses of the gang are still at large.
The racket was unearthed on January 23, when a 27-year-old Shahbazul Haque approached the Tilak Nagar police station complaining that he has been cheated. Haque stated in his complaint that he got in touch with Rupesh Kumar, who offered to help him get admission in Class X. Unemployed for a long time, Haque was in dire need of a job. He needed Class 10 degrees for employment.
Confident that he will get admission and then his certificate, Haque shelled out Rs 5,000. However, he was shocked to find that instead of getting an admission for the academic year 2017 or 2018, Rupesh Kumar allegedly provided Haque with a degree, a marksheet and a migration certificate bearing the year 2003.
Based on Haque’s complaint, police registered a case and initiated investigation.
Sustained investigation under the leadership of Tilak Nagar ACP Aalap Patel, police managed to trace Rupesh.
Apart from a lush office in the District Centre in Janakpuri, the accused operated from Bhagalpur in Bihar and Rohtak in Haryana. The fake degree printouts were obtained from one Someer Kumar and his associates through courier, e-mail and WhatsAap.