KARACHI, June 26 – Former president and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari left for Dubai on Wednesday, party sources said.
However, they said they were not aware of reasons for his sudden flight and the number of days he planned to stay in the United Arab Emirates. Zardari flew to Dubai in the evening from Karachi.
“Bilawal Bhutto Zardari did not accompany him and media reports in this regard are not true. He is here till late Wednesday though his future plan about international travel is not known.” Zardari’s departure came a day after his elder sister and key leader of the party Faryal Talpur made the same move on Tuesday.
Zardari speech against army (Credit: newsmedialive.com)
In a surprising outburst ostensibly against the powerful security establishment, Pakistan Peoples Party Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari said on Tuesday that politicians were better suited to running the affairs of the country. “You are here for only three years,” he said in an apparent jab at the army chief.
Addressing an oath-taking ceremony for PPP office-bearers from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Zardari said, “I know the art of war better than anyone else.”
Organised by former MNA and PPP Fata President Akhunzada Chattan, the event was attended by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and other prominent leaders of the former ruling party.
The PPP co-chairman expressed annoyance at the purported character-assassination campaign against him and his party. “It needs to stop! There is a limit to everything.”
Warning the establishment, which he accused of tarnishing PPP’s and his image, Zardari said, “Anyone who tries to disturb us will get a befitting response. Be wary! If this doesn’t stop now, I shall come out with a list of generals who have been accused starting from the time Pakistan came into being. And then you’ll spend the rest of your lives providing explanations.”
In an apparent reference to the power he is supposed to wield, the former president said he could bring the whole country to a standstill on a single call. “If I give one call, the whole country from Karachi to Khyber will come to a grinding halt. The lockdown will continue until I call it off.”
Zardari said he wanted to support the Pakistan Army since it was “being challenged by the neighbouring India on the borders while terrorist organisations and India’s primary foreign intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing, were creating chaos within Pakistan”.
In the same vein, Zardari said he was aware who pulled the strings of banned outfits and mullahs, alluding to their alleged collusion with the establishment.
Lashing out at his political rivals, the PPP co-chairman said had he supported Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf when it arrived in Islamabad with a sit-in to topple the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, Imran would have succeeded.
“Being a supporter of democracy, I wanted the PML-N government to complete its tenure,” he said. “It would make me happy if the incumbent administration could improve the economy.”
The ruling party will have no excuse that they were not given enough time, said Zardari. “I am not in a hurry. I can wait for the sake of democracy.”
He also lashed out at former president Pervez Musharraf, who has been in Karachi for the past several months and has been politicking from the platform of his party, the All Pakistan Muslim League. “I spent years in jail… but the commando could not spend three months in prison.”
Zardari’s speech comes days after Rangers Sindh chief Maj-Gen Bilal Akbar blamed a nexus of political leaders, civil servants and gang lords of fostering and harbouring organised crime and terrorism in Karachi, as well as amid reports that the authorities were mulling over extending the scope of the ongoing operation in Sindh, the province that the PPP has been governing since 2008.
PPP leaders have been making angry speeches in parliament after the Rangers chief’s statements, but political pundits are attaching much importance to the timing of Zardari’s speech, since the former president had been in a conciliatory mode on a number of issues after his party lost the 2013 general elections after completing their five-year tenure.
HYDERABAD/SUKKUR, June 18: The National Accountability Bureau (Nab) spent a busy day on Thursday when they arrested at least four public officials on charges of corruption.
The Nab Karachi circle raided the office and residence of a former town municipal officer (TMO) in Sehwan, Jamshoro, early on Thursday, and arrested three TMOs on corruption charges. The team, led by assistant director Aslam Pervez Abro, arrived at the office on Wednesday afternoon but they stayed till past midnight as they looked through records.
The TMOs were taken into the custody along with the official record at around 4am. The NAB sources said they delayed the arrest because the Jamshoro police deployed their men outside the TMO’s office to prevent their arrest. Over 100 workers of the TMO and their supporters also gathered outside the office apparently to deter the NAB team from detaining them.
The men who were arrested include former Sehwan TMO Rehmatullah Memon, who is currently posted in Matiari district, town officer finance Zahoor Ahmed Shahani and engineer Idrees Memon. The team also raided the residence of incumbent TMO Asghar Bhund but he had already escaped from his residence.
“The arrested accused persons and others are involved in corruption worth Rs120 million, which they committed through withdrawal of illegal cheques and issued huge amounts to fake contractors and parties,” said a NAB press statement issued on Thursday.
According to a NAB official, they called Memon from Matiari to ask some questions but when he could not justify the expenditures on various schemes during his tenure, they arrested him for further investigations.
The police allowed the NAB team to take the officers after recording a ‘musheer nama’ about their detention at Sehwan police station. The officers are charged with falsifying accounts, making fake purchases and releasing salaries to ghost employees, besides embezzlement in the budget.
Separately, a NAB team also raided TMO Bathoro in Sujawal district on Thursday and seized records. They also arrested TMO Wasif Malik. Another former TMO of Sujawal, Mumtaz Ali Zardari, was also arrested from Karachi. Zardari was posted as TMO Sujawal between June and July last year. “The arrested accused was allegedly involved in corruption worth Rs100 million, which he committed through withdrawal of illegal cheques and issued huge amounts to fake contractors and parties,” said the NAB statement.
Excise and taxation secretary arrested
Earlier on June 4 this year, NAB had also arrested excise and taxation secretary Badar Jamil Mandhro on charges of selling gold worth Rs100 million to a jeweller in Karachi.
When Mandhro was the minority affairs secretary, he sold gold worth Rs100 million to a jeweller in Karachi in 2013, a NAB official told The Express Tribune. He was also accused of illegally handing out jobs in exchange for bribes. Sources said that the secretary was arrested from his office, after he had failed to show up before the NAB officer despite being issued a notice. After the initial investigation, Mandhro was produced before the court, which granted him a 15-day remand.
On May 8, NAB deputy director for the financial crimes investigation wing issued a notice to Faheemuddin, the owner of Islamia Jewellers in Karachi, directing him to appear before him on May 14, along with the original purchase register, purchase bills, details regarding the mode of payment and relevant records. This notice, according to the NAB official, was issued to the jeweller regarding the purchase of gold worth Rs100 million from Badar Jamil Mandhro in 2013.
The officer previously worked as a secretary under the women development ministry, was appointed the minority affairs secretary and is presently serving as the excise and taxation department secretary. A highly placed officer in the Sindh government told The Express Tribune that Mandhro’s arrest means that NAB has sufficient evidence against him.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 19th, 2015.
Two key suspects in the 2010 murder of a Pakistani politician in London have been arrested, it has emerged.
Dr Imran Farooq was stabbed to death outside his home in Edgware almost five years ago in what detective believe may have been a politically motivated killing.
Scotland Yard named Moshin Ali Syed, 29, and Muhammad Kashif Khan Kamran, 34, as suspects after records showed they left the UK on the night of the murder.
Moshin Ali was detained on Thursday as he tried to enter Pakistan from Afghanistan, local frontier police said.
He was held with another man, Khalid Shamim, but sources revealed that Kashif Khan was also already in the custody of the Pakistan security services.
The men are due to appear in court and are likely to face moves to extradite them to the UK.
Dr Farooq was a founding member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the biggest political force in Karachi, and was killed close to its London headquarters.
Detectives have been investigating whether the murder was linked to his plans to break away from the MQM leadership and launch a new, independent political career.
Khalid Wasey, a spokesman for the Frontier Constabulary in Pakistan, said the two men arrested on Thursday are expected to be handed over to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
He said both belonged to the “the political party of the Karachi”.
An Interior Ministry source said: “It is believed that Moshin |Ali was involved in the high profile murder of the Dr. Imran Farooq in the London.
“An important breakthrough is expected in the Imran Farooq murder case.”
MQM law maker Farooq Sattar denied any MQM link with the two arrested men, adding: “Islamabad must stop targeting a major political party of Karachi.”
ISLAMABAD, June 14: Days after authorities in the federal capital sealed the offices of international non-governmental organisation Save the Children, the interior ministry has allowed the INGO to resume operations in Pakistan.
Save the Children has previously been accused of involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency and Dr Shakeel Afridi in tracking down the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.
Suspending its first orderin which it sealed offices and operations of the INGO in Islamabad earlier this week, the Ministry of Interior let the international NGO to continue its work in the country.
“The undersigned is directed to refer to this ministry’s letter of even number dated 11th June 2015 on the subject noted about. The competent authority has desired that the action on above letter may be held in abeyance till further order,” reads the letter issued by Ministry of Interior. A copy the letter issued by a senior officer of the ministry is also available with The Express Tribune.
“The organisation [Save the Children] can continue its work in Pakistan as it has been doing for decades until any further orders,” a senior official of interior Ministry said.
“We are in process of regulating all INGOs and NGOs and all international organisations have been directed to follow the new laws or close their offices,” he added.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar has said the government is working on streamlining the operations of all non-profit organisations working in the country to regulate their activities.
Speaking to reporters outside the National Assembly in Islamabad on Friday, Nisar said a committee constituted by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was working on drafting new laws to set a mechanism for operations of all such organisations. PM’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi heads the committee.
He added that no non-governmental organisation (NGO) working against the country’s national interest would be allowed to continue working in Pakistan. “We just want to regulate the system. We do not want to shut down NGOs, which follow our laws.”
KARACHI, May 27 — Pakistani investigators arrested the chief executive of Axact, a software company accused of running a global diploma mill, early Wednesday after discovering a storage room filled with blank fake degrees.
The chief executive, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, and four other Axact executives were initially charged with fraud, forgery and illegal electronic money transfers, law enforcement officials said. The charges were later expanded to include money laundering and violating Pakistan’s electronic crimes act.
The arrests were a sharp blow to a company that claimed to be Pakistan’s biggest software exporter and that was on the cusp of starting a major television network. Axact has been under investigation since May 19, after an article in The New York Times described how the company had made millions of dollars by running hundreds of fake online education websites.
Since then, federal investigators have sealed Axact offices in Karachi and Islamabad and requested help from Interpol and the F.B.I. Mr. Shaikh sought to defend himself in a series of television interviews and video appeals, and asked the courts to halt the investigation.
But his legal move proved unsuccessful, and late Tuesday, after hours of questioning, he led investigators to a building next to the Axact headquarters in the upscale Karachi neighborhood of Defence.
Inside, they found a room filled with blank certificates bearing the letterheads of dozens of fake universities and high schools operated by Axact under names like Bay View, Cambell State, Oxdell and Nixon.
“There were hundreds of thousands of documents there,” said Shahid Hayat, head of the local office of the Federal Investigation Agency, which is leading the inquiry.
Pakistani television networks broadcast images of the room, and of Mr. Shaikh, wearing a black polo shirt with the Axact logo, being led to a car waiting outside the office. As he got into the car, he could be heard telling officials of the investigation agency that he would “see to every one of them.”
Mr. Hayat, the investigator, expressed surprise at the remark. “I don’t think he can threaten us,” he said.
Mr. Shaikh appeared in court later on Wednesday. A judge granted the Federal Investigation Agency custody of Mr. Shaikh and the four other executives until June 4. Investigators had said earlier that they would seek to extend his detention by 14 days while they examined the Axact network, which spans a number of countries and includes several offshore companies.
Axact’s online activities appear to have effectively shut down. Attempts by a reporter to contact sales agents at 221 of the company’s websites in recent days produced no response. Several of the fake accreditation bodies set up by the company, in a bid to bestow legitimacy on the universities, have gone offline.
Pakistan has requested F.B.I. assistance because many of the universities run by Axact purported to be based in the United States, operated bank accounts and mailboxes there and sold fake degrees to Americans. Axact sales agents also sold State Department authentication certificates bearing Secretary of State John Kerry’s signature.
Experts say that fake degrees can pose dangers to public safety and national security in many parts of the world and can enable immigration fraud. They can also have serious consequences for customers who are caught using them.
Two former Axact officials, speaking separately, said that in 2009, an American married couple, both members of the United States military serving in Iraq, had emailed Axact to say that they faced courts-martial for having presented academic credentials bought from a university run by Axact.
The couple requested an accreditation certificate from the university to help defend themselves, said Ahmed, a former sales agent who asked that his last name not be used. An Axact manager instructed subordinates to block the couple’s calls, he said.
Mr. Shaikh has vehemently denied any wrongdoing but admitted some involvement in the online degree business. In his last video message before his arrest, he said that Axact provided telephone support and what he termed “document management services” for other companies. He did not identify those companies.
The scandal has cast a cloud over Bol, the Axact television and newspaper group that had planned to begin broadcasting in June. On Saturday, the network’s editor in chief and several leading journalists resigned, after Pakistan’s interior minister spoke of “substantive” evidence against Axact.
Saba Imtiaz reported from Karachi, and Declan Walsh from London. Griffin Palmer contributed reporting from New York.
KARACHI, May 24: As the scandal surrounding Axact’s fake degree empire roiled the country, several senior journalists announced on Saturday that they were leaving the Bol Network, a sister concern of the controversial IT company.
Those who quit Bol included the network’s two top executives, Kamran Khan and Azhar Abbas.
“Charges against Axact are far from having been proved in court but my conscience is not letting me continue,” tweeted Bol’s president and editor-in-chief Kamran Khan, who had earlier called on the Supreme Court to form an independent panel of experts to look into the NYT claims about Axact.
“I have decided to disassociate from Bol immediately,” he continued in his post on the microblogging website.
Bol News President and Chief Executive Officer Azhar Abbas has also stepped down. “I have resigned after speaking to my editors and staff. I put together a great team of journalists and I wish them [the] best,” he tweeted.
Kamran and Abbas were followed by Iftikhar Ahmed, who in a post on Twitter said he “cannot work for an organisation whose basic workings conflict with my professional commitment.”
“I have decided to disassociate myself from Bol,” he added.
Bol Executive Vice-President and senior anchorperson Asma Shirazi, who had earlier said she would quit the network immediately if any allegation against Axact was proved, also announced her resignation on Twitter.
“I have resigned from Bol News. Truth must prevail,” she posted on the microblogging website.
Other senior anchorpersons to leave Bol on Saturday included Wajahat S Khan and Nusrat Javeed.
“It’s done. I will be back, but not on Bol,” announced Wajahat, who joined Bol News as executive vice-president and senior anchorperson.
“Although I strongly feel that my colleagues in the media rushed to pass a final judgment regarding our relations with Bol, I am quitting,” tweeted Nusrat Javeed.
Other anchorpersons said they would remain with Bol News for now and take a final decision later.
“I have not resigned yet from Bol… I will let my viewers know about my decision soon,” said Jasmeen Manzoor.
To say that the exposé done by the New York Times on a Pakistan-based IT company, Axact’s shady business practices has caused ripples in the Pakistani media industry would be an understatement. The way it has divided opinions among the working journalists, be it senior or those still learning the ropes, is even more startling.
The NYT story had detailed alleged involvement of Axact in running an international network selling fake online diplomas and degrees through sleek websites of ghost foreign schools and universities. However, among the circles having anything to do with the Pakistani media, most of the content in the NYT story about Axact has already been common knowledge. The fact that the NYT has done a story quoting sources has only led credence to these rumors and made it more sensational. The other part of the allegations against Axact that they also host pornographic websites has not even been mentioned by the Times. Axact emerged as a known name in Pakistan’s media fraternity in mid-2013 when they announced plans to bankroll a new television channel, BOL. They offered unprecedented salaries and perks to the aspiring employees and subsequently hired several eminent journalists. At times, the figures simply didn’t add up and their claims about revolutionizing Pakistan’s media landscape sounded too good to be true. Still, the surreal nature of these promises and the rumors about questionable funding behind this new entity hardly deterred the journalists, including some very senior and celebrated names of Pakistani journalism, from joining this new company. It defies logic that these journalists got duped during the hiring process and didn’t know of the accusation on Axact when Pakistan’s media landscape was abuzz with these rumors about shades of grey. For many of them, this was not the first time because hardly any new player in Pakistan’s television industry, since it was deregulated in 2001, could be absolved of having an entirely above-board financial record.
Soon after the Axact scandal broke in the media, a war of words broke out between the journalists from both sides (BOL and other organizations) in the mainstream as well as social media. The severity with which they attacked each other was not only surprising but also disturbing. In more than 15 years of being an active journalist before taking a break to return to school, I have never seen such polarization in the Pakistani media. Both sides are nitpicking, showing selective perception, and speaking only half-truths to justify their own positions. The battle lines have been drawn based on the affiliation with different media organizations, leaving no room for objectivity.
Those who have already joined BOL have accused their former colleagues in other media organizations of siding with their owners to spread misconceptions about the new venture (BOL) to block its potential success. Somehow, they conveniently forgot that a few weeks ago, they were themselves employed by the very same media organizations that they were now criticizing. What is happening with BOL now has already happened with Dunya and Geo but these protectors of media;s integrity and independence were silent at that time for obvious reasons. The question is that if the already existing organizations were so bad and the owners were such Satans, did these noble souls question those practices when they were part of that set-up? If the answer is no, then does it mean that the ethics and morals are dependent on the “doctrine of necessity” and material interests?
On the other hand, those journalists who have not (or not yet) joined BOL have been critical of their colleagues who moved on and joined BOL for better prospects as somebody who sold their souls to an allegedly corrupt organization (Axact) only for a few bucks. Could these torch-bearers of uprightness and clean reputation look inwards and say with certainty that everything about their own organization and the respective managements is absolutely transparent? Moreover, how many of them never changed a job for higher salaries or better working conditions? If they cannot answer these questions, then they have no right to point fingers at those who can’t be faulted for availing the opportunities coming their way.
Most of the journalists in Pakistan have knowingly and willingly joined these new channels left, right and center during the last decade or so. For a majority of them, the increasing zeros on the paycheck after years of professional struggles and financial strife have provided enough justification to fall for this bargain. They have taken solace in the fact that their professional working wasn’t getting affected by whatever reputation their organizations’ owners had otherwise. There was a general acknowledgment of what was wrong at least in private conversations, if not very openly. The last thing I expected was to witness both sides to defend these wrongdoings so vehemently. It is clear that both sides are sitting in glass houses and throwing stones on each other, taking a self-righteous position. In trying to take potshots at each other, they have conveniently forgotten the skeletons in their own closet.
There are no two opinions that journalists in Pakistan have endured several decades of tough professional and financial circumstances and have every right to good earnings and lifestyle. But becoming part of an alleged scam, and getting blinded by the digits on the paychecks, does not provide any justification whatsoever to shy away from the troubling questions staring everybody associated with the Pakistani media in the face. If it does happen to be of no priority for anybody, then that person is clearly in the wrong profession. If the “so what” argument being presented by the journalists predominantly on the social media on the grounds that “none of the earlier media owners has clean hands” is to be bought, then what would they say about the police officials who were being offered more money by Taliban to switch sides at the height of counter-terrorism operation in Pakistan?
If the accusations have been raised on Axact management, it is true that they are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Simultaneously, it is also true that the accusations are of very serious nature and rubbishing them or making claims of innocence are also a bit premature. Being a journalist is much more than being somebody’s employee (and mouthpiece) to ensure taking a fat paycheck back home every month. The last thing a journalist is expected to do is to act as an irrational activist of a political party but that has started happening increasingly in Pakistan. Driven primarily by financial rewards, all ethical and professional journalistic considerations have been put on the backburner and both sides are equally at fault in doing so. That’s certainly a far more disturbing big picture that merits attention, debate and some honest soul-searching on the part of all those involved.
The reality of employment opportunities and working conditions available for Pakistani journalists at the moment is not all black and white but has definite shades of grey about it. They can either (at least) acknowledge and get on with it or take a clear stand against it based on nothing but strict principles. The latter option is easier said than done. But some honesty from both sides would do no harm. In this small industry, nothing remains hidden forever and there are no permanent friends and foes. Let journalism retain some sanctity as a profession and allow each other to remain professional colleagues instead of making it resemble a chessboard. Remember, at the end of the game, the king and the pawns go into the same box.
It is clarified that NYT in Pakistan is partnered with Express Media Group to publish International NYT in Pakistan and receive earnings from the group. Express Group was under a restraining order and contempt of court proceedings by Sind High Court for publishing a defamatory news item and further from publishing anything detrimental to Axact’s reputation. (Click here to view the courts restraining order). Hence Express Media Group to counter the success of BOL and to circumvent the court order has got this story published via its partner NYT in collaboration with some reporter called Declan Walsh.
It should also be noted that a few months back in a registered criminal case by Axact for Data Theft (Criminal case No.561/2015), Police investigations led to Mr. Sultan Lakhani as the ultimate hidden owner of that company involved in Data theft of Axact and other IT companies and his name was included in the interim police Challan. (Click here to see the police challan mentioning Sultan Lakhani). After which Mr. Sultan also tried to transfer the investigations to another Police department of his choice but on 12th May 2015 that transfer was also suspended by Sind High Court and the criminal investigation again started against Mr. Sultan Lakhani. (Click here to view the request for transfer,transfer order and court order suspending the transfer).
The story is authored by some reporter Declan Walsh of NYT who was expelled from Pakistan as Persona non-grata by Pakistan Interior Ministry allegedly due to his involvement in damaging Pakistan’s national interests. Even the media group he is affiliated with, the Express Tribune, published a story against him (click here to read more). Several other organizations have also written about him (click here to read more). This reporter has worked and devised a one-sided story without taking any input from the company. A last-minute, haphazard elusive email was sent to the company demanding an immediate response by the next day to which the attorney for Axact responded. Click here to view the response.
Moreover, this reporter has not mentioned the conflict of interest which the NYT has due to its association with Express Media as its revenue source in Pakistan. This necessary disclosure regarding the criminal cases on NYT Partner in Pakistan was deliberately omitted and is an injustice to the reader not expected of a publication like NYT.
In an exemplary display of poor journalistic skills and yellow journalism, the writer quoted references from several imaginary employees to corroborate accusations made out of thin air. None of these accusations have been substantiated with any real proof. Search engines have been used to type ‘fake degrees’ and whatever images have turned up have been portrayed as evidence. Additionally, no proof has been given linking any of these sites and allegations to Axact and widely recognized names such as that of John Kerry have been used to increase the impact of the story. In fact the writer himself admits that when he approached these universities, they denied having any links with Axact. Furthermore, in a glaring display of bias, he didn’t even mention the fact that all these previous published allegations have been more than adequately addressed by Axact earlier in the civil suit 907/2013 filed against GEO and others.
One aspect that stands very clear from all this is that a personal grudge has been displayed by the writer. Parallels laded with negativity have been drawn with the portrayal of positive Pakistan and also including references to the Silicon Valley as if offering world-class facilities to employees is something that we should be ashamed about when it is our pride. This reminds us of the story made by Forbes against NYT reporters of publishing false stories.Click here to read more
For information on Axact Education Unit, it is hereby clarified that Axact provides a comprehensive education management system that benefits diverse bodies of students and caters to all types of educational institutions—online and traditional. It is a 360 degree solution for students and faculty around the globe, available on multiple educational platforms being its core capability. For details on this, click here.
Furthermore, Axact’s Online Education Management System is World’s Leader outside North America. And Axact is now collaborating with other renowned education groups in the USA to provide its Education Management System and is poised to be a major player in the online education industry of USA by 2018.
All ten business units of Axact are completely legitimate, legal and committed to enhancing the quality of IT services across the world.
From the very first day of announcement of BOL, certain elements have started campaigning against Axact and BOL. The GEO/Jang group and Express Media Group being direct competitors of BOL (initiated by Axact) have started a defamation campaign and other criminal pursuits since last 2 years accusing BOL of belonging to multiple groups, sometimes establishment, sometimes a real estate tycoon and sometimes other controversial personalities and were coining all kind of conspiracy theories. Now they have planned this story in collaboration with this reporter as evident from the fact that within less than 60 seconds of the publishing of this article, these media outlets started spreading this maligning campaign via different means. It is also come to our notice that they are planning with other foreign media groups to publish this story with different angles.
It should be noted that the announcement of BOL as a positive and pro-Pakistan channel in Pakistan who cares for its employees has shaken these traditional media houses who have promoted hatred, despair, negativity and hopelessness in Pakistan. Axact and BOL have vigorously pursued these elements that are desperate to malign BOL and Axact.
BOL has addressed this in the past and the following link on its website gives details of these defamation and other criminal activities and how Axact and BOL have addressed these legally.
Seen from the Internet, it is a vast education empire: hundreds of universities and high schools, with elegant names and smiling professors at sun-dappled American campuses.
Their websites, glossy and assured, offer online degrees in dozens of disciplines, like nursing and civil engineering. There are glowing endorsements on the CNN iReport website, enthusiastic video testimonials, and State Department authentication certificates bearing the signature of Secretary of State John Kerry.
“We host one of the most renowned faculty in the world,” boasts a woman introduced in one promotional video as the head of a law school. “Come be a part of Newford University to soar the sky of excellence.”
Yet on closer examination, this picture shimmers like a mirage. The news reports are fabricated. The professors are paid actors. The university campuses exist only as stock photos on computer servers. The degrees have no true accreditation.
In fact, very little in this virtual academic realm, appearing to span at least 370 websites, is real — except for the tens of millions of dollars in estimated revenue it gleans each year from many thousands of people around the world, all paid to a secretive Pakistani software company.
Axact makes tens of millions of dollars annually by offering diplomas and degrees online through hundreds of fictitious schools. Fake accreditation bodies and testimonials lend the schools an air of credibility. But when customers call, they are talking to Axact sales clerks in Karachi.
That company, Axact, operates from the port city of Karachi, where it employs over 2,000 people and calls itself Pakistan’s largest software exporter, with Silicon Valley-style employee perks like a swimming pool and yacht.
Axact does sell some software applications. But according to former insiders, company records and a detailed analysis of its websites, Axact’s main business has been to take the centuries-old scam of selling fake academic degrees and turn it into an Internet-era scheme on a global scale.
As interest in online education is booming, the company is aggressively positioning its school and portal websites to appear prominently in online searches, luring in potential international customers.
At Axact’s headquarters, former employees say, telephone sales agents work in shifts around the clock. Sometimes they cater to customers who clearly understand that they are buying a shady instant degree for money. But often the agents manipulate those seeking a real education, pushing them to enroll for coursework that never materializes, or assuring them that their life experiences are enough to earn them a diploma.
To boost profits, the sales agents often follow up with elaborate ruses, including impersonating American government officials, to persuade customers to buy expensive certifications or authentication documents.
Revenues, estimated by former employees and fraud experts at several million dollars per month, are cycled through a network of offshore companies. All the while, Axact’s role as the owner of this fake education empire remains obscured by proxy Internet services, combative legal tactics and a chronic lack of regulation in Pakistan.
“Customers think it’s a university, but it’s not,” said Yasir Jamshaid, a quality control official who left Axact in October. “It’s all about the money.”
Axact’s response to repeated requests for interviews over the past week, and to a list of detailed questions submitted to its leadership on Thursday, was a letter from its lawyers to The New York Times on Saturday. In the letter, it issued a blanket denial, accusing a Times reporter of “coming to our client with half-cooked stories and conspiracy theories.”
In an interview in November 2013 about Pakistan’s media sector, Axact’s founder and chief executive, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, described Axact as an “I.T. and I.T. network services company” that serves small and medium-sized businesses. “On a daily basis we make thousands of projects. There’s a long client list,” he said, but declined to name those clients.
The accounts by former employees are supported by internal company records and court documents reviewed by The New York Times. The Times also analyzed more than 370 websites — including school sites, but also a supporting body of search portals, fake accreditation bodies, recruitment agencies, language schools and even a law firm — that bear Axact’s digital fingerprints.
In academia, diploma mills have long been seen as a nuisance. But the proliferation of Internet-based degree schemes has raised concerns about their possible use in immigration fraud, and about dangers they may pose to public safety and legal systems. In 2007, for example, a British court jailed Gene Morrison, a fake police criminologist who claimed to have degree certificates from the Axact-owned Rochville University, among other places.
Little of this is known in Pakistan, where Axact has dodged questions about its diploma business and has portrayed itself as a roaring success and model corporate citizen.
“Winning and caring” is the motto of Mr. Shaikh, who claims to donate 65 percent of Axact’s revenues to charity, and last year announced plans for a program to educate 10 million Pakistani children by 2019.
More immediately, he is working to become Pakistan’s most influential media mogul. For almost two years now, Axact has been building a broadcast studio and aggressively recruiting prominent journalists for Bol, a television and newspaper group scheduled to start this year.
A screengrab taken from the website Columbiana University. This and other Axact sites have toll-free American contact numbers and calculatedly familiar-sounding names.
Just how this ambitious venture is being funded is a subject of considerable speculation in Pakistan. Axact has filed several pending lawsuits, and Mr. Shaikh has issued vigorous public denials, to reject accusations by media competitors that the company is being supported by the Pakistani military or organized crime. What is clear, given the scope of Axact’s diploma operation, is that fake degrees are likely providing financial fuel for the new media business.
“Hands down, this is probably the largest operation we’ve ever seen,” said Allen Ezell, a retired F.B.I. agent and author of a book on diploma mills who has been investigating Axact. “It’s a breathtaking scam.”
Building a Web
At first glance, Axact’s universities and high schools are linked only by superficial similarities: slick websites, toll-free American contact numbers and calculatedly familiar-sounding names, like Barkley, Columbiana and Mount Lincoln.
But other clues signal common ownership. Many sites link to the same fictitious accreditation bodies and have identical graphics, such as a floating green window with an image of a headset-wearing woman who invites customers to chat.
There are technical commonalities, too: identical blocks of customized coding, and the fact that a vast majority route their traffic through two computer servers run by companies registered in Cyprus and Latvia.
Five former employees confirmed many of these sites as in-house creations of Axact, where executives treat the online schools as lucrative brands to be meticulously created and forcefully marketed, frequently through deception.
The professors and bubbly students in promotional videos are actors, according to former employees, and some of the stand-ins feature repeatedly in ads for different schools.
The sources described how employees would plant fictitious reports about Axact universities on iReport, a section of the CNN website for citizen journalism. Although CNN stresses that it has not verified the reports, Axact uses the CNN logo as a publicity tool on many of its sites.
Social media adds a further patina of legitimacy. LinkedIn contains profiles for purported faculty members of Axact universities, like Christina Gardener, described as a senior consultant at Hillford University and a former vice president at Southwestern Energy, a publicly listed company in Houston. In an email, a Southwestern spokeswoman said the company had no record of an employee with that name.
The heart of Axact’s business, however, is the sales team — young and well-educated Pakistanis, fluent in English or Arabic, who work the phones with customers who have been drawn in by the websites. They offer everything from high school diplomas for about $350, to doctoral degrees for $4,000 and above.
“It’s a very sales-oriented business,” said a former employee who, like several others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared legal action by Axact.
A new customer is just the start. To meet their monthly targets, Axact sales agents are schooled in tough tactics known as upselling, according to former employees. Sometimes they cold-call prospective students, pretending to be corporate recruitment agents with a lucrative job offer — but only if the student buys an online course.
A more lucrative form of upselling involves impersonating American government officials who wheedle or bully customers into buying State Department authentication certificates signed by Secretary Kerry.
Axact employees often follow up aggressively with previous customers, pushing them to buy more. Some pose as American officials, badgering clients to spend thousands of dollars on State Department authentication letters. Payments are funneled through offshore firms.
Such certificates, which help a degree to be recognized abroad, can be lawfully purchased in the United States for less than $100. But in Middle Eastern countries, Axact officials sell the documents — some of them forged, others secured under false pretenses — for thousands of dollars each.
“They would threaten the customers, telling them that their degrees would be useless if they didn’t pay up,” said a former sales agent who left Axact in 2013.
Axact tailors its websites to appeal to customers in its principal markets, including the United States and oil-rich Persian Gulf countries. One Saudi man spent over $400,000 on fake degrees and associated certificates, said Mr. Jamshaid, the former employee.
Usually the sums are less startling, but still substantial.
One Egyptian man paid $12,000 last year for a doctorate in engineering technology from Nixon University and a certificate signed by Mr. Kerry. He acknowledged breaking ethical boundaries: His professional background was in advertising, he said in a phone interview, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid potential legal trouble.
But he was certain the documents were real. “I really thought this was coming from America,” he said. “It had so many foreigner stamps. It was so impressive.”
Real-Life Troubles
Many customers of degree operations, hoping to secure a promotion or pad their résumé, are clearly aware that they are buying the educational equivalent of a knockoff Rolex. Some have been caught.
In the United States, one federal prosecution in 2008 revealed that 350 federal employees, including officials at the departments of State and Justice, held qualifications from a non-Axact-related diploma mill operation based in Washington State.
Some Axact-owned school websites have previously made the news as being fraudulent, though without the company’s ownership role being discovered. In 2013, for instance, Drew Johansen, a former Olympic swim coach, was identified in a news report as a graduate of Axact’s bogus Rochville University.
The effects have sometimes been deeply disruptive. In Britain, the police had to re-examine 700 cases that Mr. Morrison, the falsely credentialed police criminologist and Rochville graduate, had worked on. “It looked easier than going to a real university,” Mr. Morrison said during his 2007 trial.
In the Middle East, Axact has sold aeronautical degrees to airline employees, and medical degrees to hospital workers. One nurse at a large hospital in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, admitted to spending $60,000 on an Axact-issued medical degree to secure a promotion.
But there is also evidence that many Axact customers are dupes, lured by the promise of a real online education.
Elizabeth Lauber, a bakery worker from Bay City, Mich., had been home-schooled, but needed a high school diploma to enroll in college. In 2006, she called Belford High School, which had her pay $249 and take a 20-question knowledge test online.
Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, the founder of Axact, in an image taken from social media.
Weeks later, while waiting for the promised coursework, Ms. Lauber was surprised to receive a diploma in the mail. But when she tried to use the certificate at a local college, an official said it was useless. “I was so angry,” she said by phone.
Last May, Mohan, a junior accountant at a construction firm in Abu Dhabi, paid $3,300 for what he believed was going to be an 18-month online master’s program in business administration at the Axact-owned Grant Town University.
A sales agent assured Mohan, a 39-year-old Indian citizen who asked to be identified only by part of his name, of a quality education. Instead, he received a cheap tablet computer in the mail — it featured a school logo but no education applications or coursework — followed by a series of insistent demands for more money.
When a phone caller who identified himself as an American Embassy official railed at Mohan for his lack of an English-language qualification, he agreed to pay $7,500 to the Global Institute of English Language Training Certification, an Axact-run website.
In a second call weeks later, the man pressed Mohan to buy a State Department authentication certificate signed by Mr. Kerry. Mohan charged $7,500 more to his credit card.
Then in September a different man called, this time claiming to represent the United Arab Emirates government. If Mohan failed to legalize his degree locally, the man warned, he faced possible deportation. Panicking, Mohan spoke to his sales agent at Axact and agreed to pay $18,000 in installments.
By October, he was $30,000 in debt and sinking into depression. He had stopped sending money to his parents in India, and hid his worries from his wife, who had just given birth.
“She kept asking why I was so tense,” said Mohan during a recent interview near his home in Abu Dhabi. “But I couldn’t say it to anyone.”
Chasing Bill Gates
In Pakistan, Mr. Shaikh, Axact’s chief executive, portrays himself as a self-made tycoon of sweeping ambition with a passion for charity.
Growing up in a one-room house, he said in a speech posted on the company’s website, his goal was to become “the richest man on the planet, even richer than Bill Gates.” At gala company events he describes Axact, which he founded in 1997, as a global software leader. His corporate logo — a circular design with a soaring eagle — bears a striking resemblance to the American presidential seal.
Unusual for a software entrepreneur, Mr. Shaikh does not habitually use email or a cellphone, said several people recruited to his new station, Bol.
But his ambition is undimmed: Last year he announced plans for Gal Axact, a futuristic headquarters building with its own monorail system and space for 20,000 employees. His philanthropic vision, meanwhile, has a populist streak that resonates with many Pakistanis’ frustrations with their government.
Barkley University claims that its degrees are recognized all over the world.
“There is no power in the universe that can prevent us from realizing this dream,” he declared in the speech.
But some employees, despite the good salaries and perks they enjoyed, became disillusioned by the true nature of Axact’s business.
During three months working in the internal audit department last year, monitoring customer phone calls, Mr. Jamshaid grew dismayed by what he heard: customers being cajoled into spending tens of thousands of dollars, and tearful demands for refunds that were refused.
“I had a gut feeling that it was not right,” he said.
In October, Mr. Jamshaid quit Axact and moved to the United Arab Emirates, taking with him internal records of 22 individual customer payments totaling over $600,000.
Mr. Jamshaid has since contacted most of those customers, offering to use his knowledge of Axact’s internal protocols to obtain refunds. Several spurned his approach, seeing it as a fresh effort to defraud them. But a few, including Mohan, accepted his offer.
After weeks of fraught negotiations, Axact refunded Mohan $31,300 last fall.
The Indian accountant found some satisfaction, but mostly felt chastened and embarrassed.
“I was a fool,” he said, shaking his head. “It could have ruined me.”
Deception and Threats
Axact’s role in the diploma mill industry was nearly exposed in 2009 when an American woman in Michigan, angry that her online high school diploma had proved useless, sued two Axact-owned websites, Belford High School and Belford University.
The case quickly expanded into a class-action lawsuit with an estimated 30,000 American claimants. Their lawyer, Thomas H. Howlett, said in an interview that he found “hundreds of stories of people who have been genuinely tricked,” including Ms. Lauber, who joined the suit after it was established.
But instead of Axact, the defendant who stepped forward was Salem Kureshi, a Pakistani who claimed to be running the websites from his apartment. Over three years of hearings, his only appearance was in a video deposition from a dimly lit room in Karachi, during which he was barely identifiable. An associate who also testified by video, under the name “John Smith,” wore sunglasses.
Mr. Kureshi’s legal fees of over $400,000 were paid to his American lawyers through cash transfers from different currency exchange stores in Dubai, court documents show. Recently a reporter was unable to find his given address in Karachi.
“We were dealing with an elusive and illusory defendant,” said Mr. Howlett, the lawyer for the plaintiffs.
In his testimony, Mr. Kureshi denied any links to Axact, even though mailboxes operated by the Belford schools listed the company’s headquarters as their forwarding address.
Today, Belford is still open for business, using a slightly different website address. Former Axact employees say that during their inductions into the company, the two schools were held out as prized brands.
Axact does have regular software activities, mainly in website design and smartphone applications, former employees say. Another business unit, employing about 100 people, writes term papers on demand for college students.
But the employees say those units are outstripped by its diploma business, which as far back as 2006 was already earning Axact around $4,000 a day, according to a former software engineer who helped build several sites. Current revenues are at least 30 times higher, by several estimates, and are funneled through companies registered in places like Dubai, Belize and the British Virgin Islands.
Axact has brandished legal threats to dissuade reporters, rivals and critics. Under pressure from Axact, a major British paper, The Mail on Sunday, withdrew an article from the Internet in 2006. Later, using an apparently fictitious law firm, the company faced down a consumer rights group in Botswana that had criticized Axact-run Headway University.
It has also petitioned a court in the United States, bringing a lawsuit in 2007 against an American company that is a competitor in the essay-writing business, Student Network Resources, and that had called Axact a “foreign scam site.” The American company countersued and was awarded $700,000, but no damages have been paid, the company’s lawyer said.
In his interview with The New York Times in 2013, Axact’s chief executive, Mr. Shaikh, acknowledged that the company had faced criticism in the media and on the Internet in Britain, the United States and Pakistan, and noted that Axact had frequently issued a robust legal response.
“We have picked up everything, we have gone to the courts,” he said. “Lies cannot flourish like that.”
Mr. Shaikh said that the money for Axact’s new media venture, Bol, would “come from our own funds.”
With so much money at stake, and such considerable effort to shield its interests, one mystery is why Axact is ready to risk it all on a high-profile foray into the media business. Bol has already caused a stir in Pakistan by poaching star talent from rival organizations, often by offering unusually high salaries.
Mr. Shaikh says he is motivated by patriotism: Bol will “show the positive and accurate image of Pakistan,” he said last year. He may also be betting that the new operation will buy him influence and political sway.
In any event, Axact’s business model faces few threats within Pakistan, where it does not promote its degrees.
When reporters for The Times contacted 12 Axact-run education websites on Friday, asking about their relationship to Axact and the Karachi office, sales representatives variously claimed to be based in the United States, denied any connection to Axact or hung up immediately.
“This is a university, my friend,” said one representative when asked about Axact. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
