Jazan police officials, who recently foiled the attempt of an alleged Jeddah-based expatriate forger to flee the country using a false identity, discovered the suspect earned SR 13 million fabricating documents.
The suspect, who will shortly be handed to Jeddah police, has sold more than 700 fake post-graduate university degrees and diplomas, taking SR 13 million from students who wanted to acquire the degrees, Al-Madinah daily reported yesterday.
Consulate officials of an Arab country helped the suspect flee from Jeddah, according to informed sources. Among the evidence gathered against the suspect is a letter from a university in his country of origin accusing him of undertaking illegal activities in violation of an agreement with the university.
The letter said the university received many communications from students in the Kingdom and the Ministry of Higher Education that the suspect was registering students for post-graduate programs in the name of the university.
The letter specifically said that the suspect in question was not authorized to register students in the university’s higher education programs, according to the contract between them.
“We strongly demand you return all the fees collected from students for post graduate studies,” the university told the suspect.
The source revealed that even though the police had been monitoring the dubious activities of the Arab expatriate since many days before the arrest warrant was issued, the man still managed to flee from Jeddah to Jazan.
The police began secretly monitoring the suspect’s office after growing suspicions from the Ministry of Higher Education regarding complaints received that the suspect was taking large fees for courses in Arab universities with the help of some officials from an Arab consulate.
In a similar incident, it was reported early last week that Qassim police arrested an Arab university professor and his daughter for forging university diplomas and seized the laboratory where they faked more than 16,000 certificates of local and international universities.
The police did not reveal the nationality of the expatriate professor.
Qassim police department has a database containing information about the fabrication of university diplomas, which in turn helped the police in the past arrest a number of people involved in the business of manufacturing fake certificates, the report said.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Council of Engineers, which is responsible for verifying and certifying engineers in the Kingdom, identified nearly 1,000 fake degrees submitted by expatriates in 2012.
Forger made SR 13 m selling fake degrees
