Counterfeit Documents, A Fraudster's Best Friend
11 May 2013
By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed
A few weeks ago, Saudi police seized items consisting
of stamps, certificates, CDs and letters; all of which
were being used to forge documents.
The police dealt with the situation the same way they
would deal with any drugs and weapons seizure. They
claimed the items were found in an integrated lab
equipped with tools that allow the forging of
university degrees and other certificates related to
private, local and foreign institutes.
The police also found a total of 32 stamps and seals
belonging to local and foreign universities, colleges,
and institutes, in addition to forged seals belonging
to government departments. More than 16,000 forged
certificates were seized, some of which were ready to
be delivered.
Britain's Telegraph newspaper, on hearing about this
scandal, reported that 15,000 engineers from Saudi
Arabia who migrated to work in the UK may be holding
fake degrees. The main cause of the spread of these
fake certificates is the development in the methods of
electronic and print forgery and a general negligence
in verifying applicants' documents.
In the past, this was not considered a major problem
since cases such as this were rare and counterfeiters
used forged certificates and documents simply in order
to decorate the walls of their offices.
Today, it has become a serious issue, particularly as
there are hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals
who hold important positions in the country, including
engineers, doctors, and technicians. Who can tell
which doctor is real or fake? Citizens have also
discovered easy ways to buy fake certificates and work
illegally. When a doctor is not a real doctor, and an
engineer not a real engineer, who pays for the crimes
that such forged documents permit?
This issue was not so critical back when higher
educational degrees were mainly for social prestige.
Today, higher degrees have become a means for
financial gain and those who possess fake degrees find
easy employment with increased income. Having a PhD,
for instance, can increase one's salary by more than
20 percent, for example.
In fact, counterfeit degree holders are not the sole
problem; sometimes genuine degree holders lack the
proper qualifications and experience. This prompted
the British government to set up exams for doctors
coming from abroad to test their capabilities in their
respective fields. This was due to the high number of
medical errors they made, as well as some doctors
being uninterested in keeping up with medical
advancements. A certificate alone is not enough to
maintain a job.
What is required at this critical stage is to expose
the counterfeiters, especially since their operations
have become widespread due to the ease of forgery.
Such operations can be found almost anywhere in the
world and for precisely the same reason: financial
gain. In Dubai, for instance, a fake plastic surgeon
was arrested who not only carried a forged
certificate; he was even impersonating an
internationally famous surgeon.
Since the forgery community is large and
well-developed , it will not be easy for companies and
recruitment departments to discover fraud
independently. The inspection duties should be
entrusted to a third party that provides this service
for public and private sectors. How else can we find
out if a driver holds a real or counterfeit license?
How else can we tell who is really an electrician,
nutritionist, university professor and who is not?
Will it be possible to develop a third party company
whose sole function is to verify one's credentials?
Al Rashed is the
general manager of Al -Arabiya television. He is also
the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al- Awsat, and
the leading Arabic weekly magazine, Al Majalla. He is
also a senior Columnist in the daily newspapers of Al
Madina and Al Bilad. He is a US post-graduate degree
in mass communications. He has been a guest on many TV
current affairs programs. He is currently based in
Dubai.
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EsinIslam.Com
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