Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Saren, Yes, over your sar. Yes.
Do you know what's ridiculous?
I do? Good question, Elizabeth. Okay, Tommy Smothers recently passed away, I know, alright, Yeah, so they had the Smothers Brother Comedy Hour. Do you ever know about what Keith Moon did on that show? No? So the who we're supposed to perform My Generation? Right, so you got all of them? Rodger Daltrey, Keith Moon is the drummer. Townshend's guitarist, right, so Moon bass drum. Right, He's got a little thing set up or the end of the song and when it gets to the end of the song he hits
it and the drum explodes. He had loaned up to blow up live on TV.
It's very Keith.
When I say blow up, I mean like Roger Daltrey gets thrown at the camera right. The towns and Pete Townsend's hair is like on fire, singing smoking when they can when the smoke abates right now, and whistle cool as any bass player's just standing there like look whatever of that, because go and get me a drink. Right anyway, I thought that was absolutely amazing. Because also Keith Moon he got shrapnel in his own arm, so it played back ris on it right? Who never invited on TV
to do that type of show ever again? Yeah, so there you go. Temmy Smothers, all right, rip and gave us that all right Moon? Right? Ridiculous?
Huh that is ridiculous blowing up a set for effect. Do you know what else is ridiculous? Elizabeth fraud zaren it's fraud. This is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculus.
Oh you damn.
Do you know what I have in common with Lord Kelvin? The famous physicist Adam Smith, the father of economics, seven Nobel laureates, three British Prime ministers, and actor Gerard Butler.
A love of argyle socks and air bathing clothes.
We are all University of Glasgow graduates. Yes, so I have my master's degree from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Yes you do, thank you, thank you so much. Did you know the place opened in fourteen fifty.
One, as in like the Middle Ages.
Yes, it's ancient ancient.
I know, it's one of the oldest in the world. If not, I know, I think Bologna is a little bit older.
Yeah, it's one of what they call the ancient universities of Europe. Lots of notable Alumniamian you do that long.
Yeah, figure you're going to hit a couple.
And it wasn't easy to get in, and it wasn't easy to get the degree with highest distinction.
Look at you.
But and it's not just like the diploma. It's everything behind it, you know. It's the effort that I put in so I can display certain skills as a result.
Sure, and then also the imprimature of that school tells us that you did all this exactly.
So people are proud of their alma maters.
Yes, their sole mother.
Jim Mann, chief Information Technology Officer of the State of Kansas. He was proud of his degree in business administration from the University of Devonshire. Jim Man Jim Man. George Way, President of Liberia and a retired Liberian football player. He was proud of his degree from Parkwood University.
Football soccer, not football football.
Yeah. Costas Margaritis, he's a Greek politician and he's a member of the New Democracy Party there. He has a degree from Shelbourne University.
He's very proud of it, of course.
Leonard Ingram aka bag One Raw Africa. He's a self proclaimed anger management specialist. He's writing a bunch of books. He was on that Penn and Teller TV show.
Oh interesting.
He's proud of his PA philosophy from glen.
Cullen University, Glenn Collin.
Who are these people's.
Eric, Elizabeth? Are these friends of yours?
No, these people are phonies. University of Devonshire, Parkwood University, Shelbourne University, glen Cullen University. They're all fake colleges.
Oh, but the people are real.
People are real. The colleges are faked.
So they're not like AI people.
No, they're real people with fake diplomas. Got These colleges are fronts for one diploma mill operation called university degree program.
Wait one. They have all these different flavors of college you can pick.
The Chronicle of Higher Education called this the quote Granddaddy of diploma mills. And so we'll get to this particular operation later, but right now, I want to give you some background.
Please, I love background.
What is a diploma Mill's.
Errand Elizabeth, what is a diploma mill?
Well, in today's society, Webster's Dictionary defines diploma mill as quote a usually unregulated institution of higher education granting degrees with few or no academic requirements. So it's a business that sells illegitimate diplomas for bogus degrees.
Ah, degrees, those are important, I hear there.
Yeah, they're kind of uh sometimes.
So people use them all the time to leverage things they do.
That is true. And so some of these diploma mills they claim that they offer credit.
For prior learning, credit for prior learning, and.
That's a legitimate thing, but it has to be very carefully documented with like a confirmed method of conversion from experience to academic credit.
So like if I was a un interpreter working in French, like the Francophone on the African continent, I could go in and get like French five credits, sure, something like that, something like that.
Okay, So some of the diploma mills they don't even bother with any kind of conversion. Most of them also have a fake a creditor that make it look like there's some sort of quality assurance.
Ah.
And so you hear degree mill and diploma mill and they aren't the same thing.
Interesting.
Yeah, degree mill issues diplomas from unaccredited in institutions that may be legal in some states but are generally illegitimate.
That's a degree mill, so this is like a medical degree from a school in Grenada totally.
And then the diploma mill they issue counterfeit diplomas bearing the names of real universities.
Uh huh.
Sometimes there's an overlap in that I mentioned accreditation. Yes, diploma mills, they're usually shopping degrees from colleges that aren't accredited by a recognized institutional accreditor, and accreditors apparently like they keep colleges accountable to set standards.
I'm glad you bring this up. I know all about it. Credits, Elizabeth, I could tell you, I could wax poetic about it, because it's a really integral component of the academic experience, and people don't understand that colleges with us is accreditation. They could pose as we're seeing as anybody, and the creditor actually guarantees your education in a way as much as your teacher does.
Sure, No, I don't know.
Well, I'm glad you've brought that up, and.
It's like I should say that because a college is unaccredited doesn't mean it's bad or fake.
No, so you know it.
But accreditation is.
Accreditation is like basically a certification of this stuff is what it says.
And I think from my understanding, it's generally like sort of gate keeping federal financial aids. Interesting up of yeah, you should have known these things. For diploma mills, since they don't have the seal of approval from an accreditor, they have to do other stuff that's going to make them look legit to students. So some will say that they're fully accredited, but the accreditor is another scam on
its own. There are accreditation mills, and so they make their websites look legit and they claim to be approved by the government like you know an accreditor would be, and then the college can link to that fake accreditor and students think it's all on the up and up, of course, and other times the fake college will say that they are internationally recognized by organizations like UNESCO, and that sounds impressive. Sure, problem is that UNESCO has no
authority to recognize or credit colleges cultural sites completely. Oh that sounds you know, bad though, so some diploma and degree mills they like they draw students in by telling them that work history professional education can count towards a degree, which in some cases can't. Like you said, they might even have the student write a dissertation or a thesis. Of course, the papers are usually like four pages long and don't require a defense. Okay, just turn it in.
Another trick to make the place look legit is to use the following language in their promotional materials. They'll say degrees are quote attested and sealed for authenticity by government appointed notary.
You're supposed to get a sealed notarized.
All it means is that the signature on the document has been verified, so has nothing to do with the contents of the document. I could get a replica of like the Declaration of Independence, sign it in front of a notary, get their stamp on it, boom, notarized.
Yes, and the seal of course actually on the paper. It's not like it's been sealed in wax exactly. I misunderstood yes, thank you, or that.
Maybe they say it's sealed most who knows so students they either fall for the dupe or they're into the scam because the college uses names that sound legit and are easily confused with real collegists. Do you remember doctor Dante yeh.
Yeah, yeah, babbetizing doctor Donne exactly.
He won his song one best song. He ran a diploma mill. If you'll recall Columbia State University, because I talked about it. Then. Distance learning was all the rage in the late nineties, so he did correspondence courses by mail. He also did some online learning there, and he operated out of a mail drop in Louisiana. It's the one that higher ed expert John Bear said, quote Columbia State
University is a complete fake. There's no such university. The photograph on the cover of their catalog is of Notre Dame University in Indiana, while administrative office number two three one is a three inch square mailbox.
Well, you know, education come in a lot of different way.
It's not one size fits all.
What if you're saving money by using pictures of other colleges.
Here's a quick note about that environment very environmental. You're so conscientious, doctor Bear. Little aside on him. He's listed all over as a higher education expert. But I also stumbled onto a higher Education Distance Learning Conspiracy message board. What there's a post about him?
Okay, say that all again.
Higher Education Distance Learning Conspiracy message Board. It was just like too much. It was too good, and I was just like, did someone make this just like to dupe me? Because it's it's they know I'd think this is hilarious. So someone on there wrote this article thing about like alleging that John Bear is in his real name and that he secretly runs diploma mills himself and he's trying to destroy the competition. Like it was a rabbit hole,
to be sure, and it was weird. And anyway, back to Colombia, Okay, back to this day my alma mater, remember a Columbia State University. A six to eight page thesis got you a master's degree, yes, and at twelve page one got you a doctorate yes, and then both degrees could be completed in I don't know, twenty seven days a long month average was like two to four months.
Okay, yes, you could get a PhD.
For like three grand and they let you haggle and that. So he had Columbia State University. Some of the US diploma mills they use British sounding names. Like the ones I talked about Earl Year. These are similar but not identical to the names of.
Actual universe Saint Exeter.
Yeah exactly. They do this for two reasons. First, British universities are seen as like superior, super rigorous.
Of course, yes, it's why we have British sounding actors always playing in historical movies, because it's a whole Yes, of course sound British.
And then there's the fact that they're far away and not likely to be like driven by or visited by average American.
You can't go and take a self in front of like the school, exactly.
And so some examples of British sounding names used by diploma mills are Shaftsbury University, Oh yes, University of Dunham, Reading University, and Suffield University.
Wait a minute, it's just like just off.
Higher ed institutions in the US have the UURL suffix on their websites dot edu. Some diploma mills use an AC top level domain name like which resembles a genuine
second level academic domain name like AC dot UK. So like you know, for UK University it's you know, dot ac dot UK, okay, but the AC is actually the domain for Ascension Island, and so this has become so prevalent that legit colleges are starting to register that ac domain for their institutions just to redirect to their real sites to prevent digital scammers from using.
Yeah. Interesting.
So what's it like to go to a diploma a mill?
Can you actually go to one?
I guess so? Like, you may have to buy textbooks, Okay, you might have to take some tests really yeah, whether those are graded or not, who knows.
But you actually have to pretend to do some of the work.
Sometimes it depends. It's on the flavor of it. You may have to write a paper.
And call it a what is this college?
Someone might read it, maybe not, maybe not. I would love to get my hands on some of the papers turned into those places. Yeah, I would probably have an aneurysm. The programs available are generally pretty squishy squish, I mean, they aren't hard sciences. I lean on things that are like more vague or subjective or esoteric, and like sometimes it's total pseudoscience, like the gay like PhDs in aromatherapy and astrology. Oh yeah, like or anything obscure or lacking peer review.
My friend and I we invented a fake college for a while called Sandalwood State College, and we actually offered degrees in a roma therapy. So yeah, I just wanted to let you know that I've been working this scam myself, So go on.
I taught at a community college that had a name very similar to a university that was well known, and there were a lot of confusion.
Yeah, I could see that who.
Teaches at these diplomas.
Teaches at these elizabeth A.
Student's never going to meet them because you know, they don't have a campus. No one's actually going going. No, they just stand out, so they just sign off on assignments or like for a price, a student can get a reference letter. It's like in a la krte systems like this.
Yes, why not if there are.
Professors employed, their certification to teach is either a degree from that very fake institution or something from somewhere else that's totally unrelated to any of the received degrees. So it's like if I started teaching advanced mathematics at prof and bottom Glen University, like I'd sign you off on anything.
Yeah, but like, do you ever have any like disgraced teachers who've like also fall into this where they're like, you know, basically cashing out.
Probably exactly. Well, and like if there's a faculty directory on the college website with like really robust professor bios, it's likely stolen from the website of a real university. See you wonder, like who you know, what other places are they? No professors means no classrooms.
Really.
In order to be accredited, colleges have to provide library and student support services, and for online work, there has to be evidence of what they call regular and substantive interaction.
Okay, regular and substitute so they actually have to face face to face time.
Not face to face, but for like distance education, zoom calls, calls present any kind of communication with.
Your instructor and your fellow students.
Yeah, you're not just like plugging in and they do automated tests.
Let me tell you this is very important to accreditors. They're always talking about student outcomes, and this is something that's very important to really. Yeah, yeah, important because in the face to FaceTime is a way for you to gauge that.
Okay, well, well, all that evidence of interaction isn't true. Obviously at a mill, there's no library, there's no registrars office, no counselors, no labs, and then the address for the most part is like a postbox and a male forwarding service or like a suite number.
So well great, though if they had like a swim team, like they have nothing to go down to the pool, they actually have people there.
Swing sweatshirts made for these fake these fake colleges.
Tell you, Sandwood State College, I can get your merch. We have the whole We already got the thing going. I should have told you about this early.
So like when someone writes a doctoral thesis or a dissertation at a legitimate university, it's available from University Microfilms International, which is a national repository, or the institution's own library. That's not true for the mills. At most colleges, the motto for faculty is publisher parish, so you have to be writing scholarly articles, conducting research, or for the arts creating works in order to keep your job. At diploma mills,
there's either none of them or it's faked. And a red flag is that tuition and fees are charged by the degree, so students don't pay by units per semester. You just do a flat fee for the whole thing.
That's a problem. Okay, remember that that's a red flag.
They don't market themselves at college fairs or like in regular areas. It's generally like spam emails, and the emails often like urge students and role now before tuition or feesing are increased. That's not how it works.
It's like University of Phoenix. Part of this. Would you say that they.
A touchy subject. They're not technically there are they're not technically we'll put it that way. So they but they urge you to get the early bird special, you know, and roll now. The marketing materials, the college catalog, the website usually have all sorts of like spelling and grammar errors. And they love putting stuff in Latin.
Of course, my.
Diplomas in Latin. By the way, did I get scammed? But so that's it makes it look fancy, it puts an edge on it.
So's the patina you want exactly put it in Latin.
So we know about like what a diploma or degree mill looks like. Take a break, we come back. I'm going to tell you about some of the biggest defenders and how the law came a call in welcome. Hey, hey, diploma mills.
Yeah, it's Alma maters.
We've been around forever. In two thousand and four, FBI Special Agent Autho Alan Eazel.
White, what yeah, is he also think ezel? Okay, I love see.
My neck on my back testify to the House Subcommittee on twenty first Century Competitiveness. Quote. Degree mills are not just a recent problem, He's all told the committee. We have had them in the United States since about eighteen thirty five. As long as we have a credential conscious society where the degree you possess gets you the promotion or salary increase, then we will have degree mills. This is education fraud and no different from any other fraud.
Eighteen the camera, Yeah, we had agree mills longer than we've had cameras.
Yes, exactly. In nineteen seventy eight, Mike Wallace reported for sixty minutes.
Yes, oh yeah, love. Yeah.
He did an expose where he interviewed the owner of California pacifica University and a suspected diploma mill, and the guy was arrested mid interview, and he like wound up pleading guilty to multiple cuts of mail fraud. He did time, did Mike time that he did then find them?
Yeah, basically, I'll tell you this is when we're recording, show up. An hour after I get set up.
Authorities shut down Dallas State College in Texas in nineteen seventy five. The owners turned around and almost immediately opened up as Jackson State University in California in California. Yeah, I like Jackson up in the Golden I don't know, I think so. Then the post office shut down their mail there and they disappeared, but they popped up again as John Quincy Adams University in Oregon.
One of this wacked bowl.
That is the best remscription of this total whackable. It took twelve more years before the Dallas State perps were finally brought to justice. It was the FBI and their joint task force with the IRS and the US Postal Service SEA. They done did it because all this stuff is through the mail. Yeah, there's this little something that they all got together and called Operation Diploma Scam, otherwise
known as dip Scam, Operation dip Scam. So for eleven years they cracked down on these sixteen federal search warrants, nineteen federal grand jury indictments and twenty one convictions. Wow, pretty good. Along the way, the head of operations for Operation dip Scam, Special Agent Easel, he he bought. He bought personally ten bachelor's degrees, nineteen master's degrees, four PhDs, and two mds. He's so ed, I mean he really is. He's a scholar, anagezic. His wall is filled according to Ezel.
Frame Business, I'm coming. They're like, oh, we're getting to both.
There were more than two thousand diploma mills at the time and more than two hundred unrecognized A creditors, and some of them were operated by the same person.
You know, I'm getting you for your birthday, giving you a hand came suitable for free.
I need a PhD. So and then I can just be doctor Dutton and let use that for everything.
Your last name you pronounced.
It like of the tuna. So it all. It all started in nineteen eighty the dip scan too, when the Charlotte Field Office of the FBI started looking into Southeastern University in Greenville, South Carolina. This sounds like an established, lauded university, Southeastern University green Law for four yards. It's actually a degree mill. Run out of a small two
bedroom house. And so the man who owned and ran the place actually invited Ezell and another agent who posed as a student to tour the operation.
Come over to the student union living room.
So he's like, come into my little two bedroom house. He shows them the student records.
Here's creek row.
He shows them the fake diplomas, the seals, the ribbons. All of this is later going to get seized by the FBI, and so he's just laying it out here. Yeah, so like pickup color of the ribbon. And seventy one of Southeastern's six hundred and twenty quote graduates were eloy by federal, state, or local governments.
Wowe wait a minute.
Yeah, so like almost we're getting close to a third. Yeah, so much for a vetting process, right, So some of the students they're in on the con they wanted to use the diploma to get a raised secure a specific yet others were a little naivete There was a security guard in Texas. He said he bought a BA in law enforcement from Southwestern University in Tucson for five hundred bucks in nineteen eighty two because he quote wanted something to hang on my wall. And feel proud about.
Have just bought a star. I mean, that's a similar scam.
So what clued him off that the diploma wasn't legit was that his transcripts showed that he got good grades and courses like trigonometry, but he didn't take any trig or most of the other courses listed on the transcript with his name on it. So he took some like he filled out tests like correspondence education, and they were just like whatever, they have one transcript they send out to people. So that's the thing, though, you aren't just
really buying the diploma, you're buying the transcripts. Yes, you know, that's what you really need to get the job.
That's going to be something they need proof.
Yeah, if you're a if you're in an industry where they want to know, like you know, your degrees, generally they want to see the transcripts.
Like civil engineering.
Like civil engineering, they're not going to say, just take a picture of your diploma. Yeah, they want the transcripts, and so dip scam. They shut down twenty of diploma mills. Nineteen eighty three, a seventy nine year old Arkansas man named George Lyon. He got sentenced to a year in prison and find two thousand dollars after he sold Agent Eazl five phony degrees. He's all said, quote, I complained to him because a diploma I'd gotten in the mail
was damaged. He sat there and forged another one for me, right on the spot. He's like, yeah, it's fine, give me.
I got a good pen.
So nineteen eighty four, John Blazer pleaded guilty to mail fraud for sending out degrees from his bogus to universities of East Georgia and the Bahama Islands.
But wait, his name is real John Blazer.
John Blazer, Wow Blaze.
And so next time my freestyle, that's what I'm going to be rhymes of Blazer. Oh go on.
So he got two years in prison. The investigations they're slow going because it can take a couple of years years with those Yeah, it can take a couple of years to prove up mail and wire fraud. And then by that time these collegiate con artists they've moved on. Oh yeah, they set up the new location, whack them all and they get things rolling. Charles Durham of Seneca, South Carolina, he got charged with mail fraud in connection with three diploma.
Mills, am I noticing a trend that in the South trend. Okay, I just wanted in South Carolina, South Carolina specifically, but I did notice a lot.
Yeah, it's questionable. He had this interesting defense of his diploma mills. He said that his diplomas, which cost one thousand dollars for a doctorate, were only quote expensive novelties. It's like something you get from Spencer's.
Gifts when you go to the pennies stamped and it says like, oh, you're at the you know whatever, Seattle. Yeah, like the skylines his life, that Alma.
But at diploma. His lawyer said, quote people who bought these diplomas knew exactly what they were getting, and I don't think the FBI can show otherwise. Well, yeah, but you're still selling them. Operation dip Scam's first targets were actually fake medical schools. So when you buy a fake degree in like numerology or criminal justice, you know you're duping an employer or a customer, But at the end of the day, there's like no physical harm. That's not
true with fake medical schools at all. That's dangerous.
That's a big oh yeah.
And like once the operation was underway, the FBI they're able to quickly shut down the two worst medical schools, Johann Kepler School of Medicine and United American Medical College.
There I know, wait a minute, you're telling me about medical your patients.
But so Dipscam, though their largest case, came to its climax in October of nineteen eighty seven. Zarenes close you out. I want you to picture it. You are a bailiff at the Federal courthouse in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's a beautiful October day. The leaves are changing and the air is crisp in the Queen City. You are assigned to Courtroom three. It's day twelve of the trial of seven defendants charged with mail fraud, aiding at a betting and conspiracy.
They ran a bunch of fake colleges Roosevelt University, Loyola University, Cromwell University, University of England at Oxford, Lafayette University, DePaul University, and Southern California University, as well as several fake accrediting agencies. They all sounded like legit places to you, but what you know, whatever.
Northern California University.
Yes, exactly. You've been told that the prosecution plans to call a bunch of witnesses and all told more than one hundred people will testify during the trial. They got witnesses from Europe testifying England, France, Belgium, German, Holland. It's a bigin, is what I'm trying to say. So today hire ed expert John Bear, the Doctor Dante guy and the conspiracy website. He's appearing as an expert witness and observer.
You're stationed at the back of the courtroom waiting for the judge to enter in a trial to begin again for the day. As a smattering of folks settle into the gallery and attorneys on both sides shuffle papers at their desks before the bench, you hear a loud commotion out.
In the hall. Should I be telling people to take their seats?
Yeah, well your nosy. So you step out into the hall. Of course, you and the other court staff knew this was coming. But in person of works cameras clicking, reporters shouting questions, supporters singing hymn's, detractors shouting insults, that's all going on outside the courthouse doors, but you can hear it from where you are inside. You watch if the main courthouse doors open, the commotion is thunders. A small group of people, flanked by deputies push into the courthouse,
leaving the melee behind. You see two heads in the middle of the group, both hairsprayed to beat forty one face plastered with makeup. You can see the eyelashes a mile away. The group smooths themselves out and then slips into courtroom two right next to yours. A woman standing next to you asks you who that is, Lady. You say, we just watched Jim and Tammy fay Baker enter the building. Ooh who? She asked? Has she been living under a rock?
You tell her that Jim Baker is a televangelist who builked his flock out of the funds that he used them to pay off affairs and live a lavish lifestyle. He's in court for embezzlement and fraud an affair. The woman asks, and right on time, there's another commotion outside the courtroom. This time, the figure that pushes through the boisterous crowd and into the silence of the courthouse hallway is a brunette who looks more like an eighties video
vixen than a church secretary. That's Jessica Hahn. You tell the woman next to you the va boom, She replies, that's who that little torpee guy had an affair, not an affair. You tell the woman Jessica Han is an assault victim. You tell her, plain and simple, but you're pretty sure she'll get crucified in the press. You tell the woman that Han got a quarter million dollar payoff for her silence, and the Charlotte Observer newspaper got winto
the story. Their investigation revealed two sets of books and a ton of accounting irregularities, and that's what brought them here. And what's your case, she asks in courtroom three. You tell her it's a bunch of fake colleges on trial. Interesting, she says, totally, But not as interesting as those bozos, you say, gesturing toward courtroom two. Which is why, Aaron, there's not a whole lot of press coverage of the college fraud case.
Of course, they got overshadowered huge time.
It is wall to wall Jim and Tammy Fay, both locally to Charlotte and nationally as well. So there are little pieces leading up to her.
Those are the jat and.
You get the sense that this was the college thing, was going to be a big story, and then boom blows up. So two of the minor players at the college trial, they had their cases dismissed due to lack of definitive evidence. The other five main defendants found guilty by the jury on all twenty seven counts of mail fraud, aiding at a betting conspiracy. They were sentenced to prison
terms ranging from two to seven years. But again, like the press was like chugging along, Jim and Tammy fay happen, everything kind of derails and then it's really only in like higher education press that you're finding. So remember in the very top UDP, the University Degree Program, the granddaddy of all diploma operational of course, UDP was owned by Jason and Carolyn Abraham of Brooklyn, New York. They were also known by their Hebrew names Yakov and Shia Rochelle.
They started their operation in the nineties nineteen nineties, and they recruited quote students over the phone from call centers in Romania in Israel Wow. And they also they didn't just sell diplomas, they sold fake international driver's licenses.
What.
Yeah, so the telemarket were paid on commission and they got performance based bonuses, and they had a lot of power, like they could offer degrees on whatever program a study you wanted.
They're cutting prices. I'll give you a physics degree and a math degree.
Programs right there. Yeah. So the Abrahams they made sure that there was background cover for their fake colleges. So they had all these websites for the institutions.
LA.
Yes, if you bought a degree, you didn't know which of these quote universities was going to issue the degree. You just knew I'm getting a PhD in physics.
It's like buying a flight with Delta.
Who knows what plane is going to be at the gate. Well, that's just like you wait and then when the diploma arrives. Oh, I guess I went to the Sheffield Yeah, so it's probably my guess is it's like what whichever one they have the most blanks left over for? They just the
top of the pile and UDP. They sent letters to customers that said, quote, the policy of not disclosing the name of the university protects you against unscrupulous individuals who do not approve of self study and lifestyle improvement.
You want plausible deniability, that's what you're looking at. They said.
They also did it to avoid quote bad publicity. So over the years, UDP sold more than thirty thousand degrees President of Liberia. That one.
Wait, that was the guy at the top. Okay, I didn't think it was the real President of Liberia.
Yeah, George Way, President of Liberia.
Yeah, but I thought that was a scam. Like he was like, Hi, I'm George Way, President of Liberia. But the real president.
President has one of these degrees. The couple made more than one hundred million dollars.
One hundred million dollars.
Thirty thousand of these degrees.
One hundred million dollars.
In two thousand and three, all for scam degrees, just for paper, just paper and the illusion. And look where I got a lot of these people. So the US Federal Trade Commission.
Have really reduced the value of education.
Completely. They got together with British government authorities, they went after UDP for both the degrees as well as those fake international driver's licenses. Oh, got to get them on that too. And then the FTC and the Israeli government authorities they shut down the call center operation in Jerusalem. The FTC complaints cited quote, deceptive acts or practices in
or affecting commerce, and the Abrahams. They turned over one hundred thousand dollars in profits, and then they promised, we're going to stop selling degrees, so.
They got to keep ninety nine million.
Ninety yes, I promised, we're not going to do it again. Two thousand and four, the Chronicle of Higher Education, they pointed something out. There was email advertising that looked a lot like UDPS, and the phone banking was pretty much identical to their script. And this is after they agreed
to close up shop. And so the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, which I don't know exists, they chimed in that some of the websites that appeared to be UDP programs products or clones remained in operation.
Now is the Oregon Office of Degree Authentication? They legitimate? Apparently, How will I know who authenticate the authenticators the creditors.
So it looks like this was all reported, but I'm not really sure what came of it. I couldn't find anything about them beyond twenty ten, but I'm gonna guess that they're still out there doing this.
I'm betting that this mole has whacked again. Yes, their way, however that plays there.
Let's take a break.
Okay.
When we come back, I'll have more examples of fake diplomas for you, but these are way more fun.
Oh yeah, hello, hello, Hi, hi Hi.
I've had some smart dogs and cats in my lifetime.
Are you talking to me?
Yeah? No, just talking to myself.
It's just bragging. You're just like, hey, you know what I like about us?
Some some weren't so smart, like my dog Casey. It was just empty behind the eyes, like a big old rocks, nothing but a cool breeze.
I don't see people like that. Yeah, cool breeze between the years totally.
Most of my dogs have been pretty clever, some more than others. I had a dog named Wallace who was a total genius. Yeah, like a shaggy sky terrier mutt. He'd stand on his hind legs and uses front paws to open doors with like the turning doorknob.
Oh, turn the doorknob, not just push the door open.
He would like twist the knob in between his paws and then like waltz in a room. It was really or back it up into him and then walking. It was really freaky to watch. I love that guy live to be seventeen years old. Anyway, one of the ways that investigators caught diploma mills was by having them issued degrees to pets, because there's no way the fake college can dispute that.
Why would they ever be.
Right?
Well, okay, let's start with the basics. Kitty O'Malley a cat. It sounds like a nice girl. Kitty O'Malley was really a cat named Spanky.
So in nineteen was a cat named Skanky.
Yeah, because you can't put Spanky on the application. His name Spanky So nineteen seventy three, the Lakeland, Florida newspaper The Ledger. Oh yeah, they went to Washington High Academy to get Kitty a high school diploma. Okay, and the newspaper tried to use the diploma to get Kitty into like area colleges, but that did That didn't work. They needed full transcripts and test scores and like an essay
or whatever. But the fact that a cat got a high school diploma was enough for the state Attorney General's office to launch an investigation.
From this one news story.
Yeah wow, Another high school grad by dubious means was Oreo Collins born in two thousand and seven, or was or is? I don't I probably was a tuxedo cat, and those are so cute. I know a tuxedo cat named Penny. Oreo, which is not a particularly original name for a tuxedo cat, got a diploma from Jefferson High School online in two thousand and nine. And obviously they lied about our age. Who got this cat a diploma? As a two year old gets a high school diploma? What is that?
Intelligent?
This guy, Kelvin Collins, he worked for the Better Business Bureau of Central Georgia and he was conducting a sting. Busted got him because of old Oreo Collins. Another high school grad, Mollie last name redacted. February of twenty twelve. Reporters from Houston television station KHO. You they got.
A investigative news team.
Uh huh. They got a high school diploma and official transcript from Lincoln Academy for their photographer's bassett hound. Mollie and basket hounds are cute, but they're also potentially really stinky.
I just editorial market.
Yeah, So the action news team, they paid three hundred dollars after filling out what they called a quote laughable easy take home test. The news team was tipped off to Lincoln Academy by a homeschooling advocacy group that was trying to like root out phony operations that makes homeschooling look bad. Next up Wally Brancato. Wally got an associates degree that was in two thousand and four. A man named Peter Broncado with the Albany, New York television.
Oilation Wally and Peter Broncato.
Oh you'll find out WRGB. Peter, he worked for this television station. He applied to and received an associate's degree from Almeida University. See Peter didn't, but his dog Wally did.
I got you. Yeah.
So here's what Broncado put on Wally's application. Quote plays with the kids every day, teaches them to interact better with each other, teaches them responsibilities like feeding the dog. And so Almeida University granted Wally a quote life experience associate degree in childhood development.
Yes, early childhood development, I imagine.
Yeah. The investigation aired and it was a hit. Almeida University, though was not pleased, no, no. They said that Broncato perjured himself by creating a false identity using a fabricated name and date of birth. They're like sue me, sue you Oka and Almeida University representative said quote, he completed an application that included a background of the following eight years tutoring pre K children, curriculum design and development, teaching,
coping skills, and volunteer coaching. I say dogs can do all of those things totally.
And I also I think that you can get a degree for this.
You totally can't. Wally, Though it popped up again in March two thousand and eight, he didn't transfer and get a bachelor. So he was featured in a Lake Geneva, Wisconsin mayoral campaign political cartoon. It was a picture of him and a dialogue bubble that said, I grat sduated with Bill Chessen because mayoral candidate Bill Chessen listed a bachelor's degree from Almeda University among his accomplishments. And I'm also curious was Bill Chesson ak C registered Bill?
So whoever was the political operation so caught that one news and that you need that person in your.
Operation and that's a great college. Yeah, the Zara and I'd like you to meet Zoe dkatz Zoe Certified Hypnotherapists Zoe dcats Zoe the cat in German was owned by psychologist Steve Eichel, and Michael got a psychotherapy certification for his cat from the American Psychotherapy Association, as well as a bunch of hypnotherapy credentials from other organizations. Zoe has become a cited case study for those researching credential scams, and she's even appeared in textbooks.
Wow Zoe, look what she can do.
Another hypno cat, George Jackson, registered hypnotherapist. George is also a cat. In two thousand and nine, Chris Jackson, host of the BBC show Inside Out Northeast and Cumbria, registered
his cat, George, as a hypnotherapist. Chris created a fake certificate from a non existing institution and used it to register with three professional organizations, the British Board of Neurolinguistic Programming, the United Fellowship of Hypnotherapists and the Professional Hypnotherapy Practitioner Association. None of them checked the transcripts or the records. They
just certified the cat are you kidding me? And this was part of a BBC investigation who consulted on the show Steve Eichel, owner of Fellow Cat hypnotherapist Zoe Dcats, which a whole network.
At this point, they have each other to lean on.
Yeah, exactly. So moving up the achievement ladder, we meet Lulu Howard. B SKYB Limited versus HP Enterprise Services UK Limited was a twenty ten case in the England and Wales High Court. So B sky B British Sky Broadcast. They provided satellite broadcasting and you know, related services. The defendants, HP Enterprise Services UK Limited they provided IT services in their technology, information technologies, all the IT guys.
Yeah.
So the whole thing centered around the procurement of a new customer relationship management system so that B sky B could provide improved service to its customers, focused on telephone contact between customers and the customer advisors at Sky call centers. So B sky B selected HP Enterprise to build out the system, and like, things didn't go so well. Okay, it's very dry and you're asking Elizabeth, where are the qut pups?
Elizabeth, I'm noticing no qt pups. Where are they there?
Bring me.
The qt pups, I like top shelf qut pops.
The ones in the caps in the gown was holding diplomas. Those qute pops, I want you to hold tight. The defendant's key witness had an MBA from Concordia College in the US Virgin Islands.
Though so but that was.
Not impressive to Mark Howard, a member of the legal team for be sky B.
I'm with Mark Howard.
He smelled a fake, so he went out and got a degree from Concordia for his dog, Lulu. Lulu got better grades than the key witness, so I'm thinking Mark paid more for that. The judge found that the witness had lied. All hell broke loose, and the story is now a thing of legend in the British legal Oh really yeah, Because here he's like, oh, so you're an expert witness, this is your credentials. How about my dog has better degree?
Yet, do you imagine being a lawyer? And then, like the rock, You've said it all up, you got the thing already. The guy sets into your he steps right into your trap and you're.
Like, oh yeah, Barbara with shaking practically exactly Barbara. Another one to complete a degree on the road to gainful employment was Maxwell Sniffingwell, sniffing so doctor Ben Mays, a veterinarian in Clinton, Arkansas. He got a degree in theeogeneology from Belford University on behalf of an English bulldog named Maxwell sniffing well.
Oh of course, yes.
What is theeogenology, Elizabeth? What is basically veterinary reproductive medicine and surgery.
Oh so it's like kynecology for dogs, I suppose.
So yeah, so the almost husbandry I would imagine, like husband but like the surgery part of it.
That's what I was thinking.
The application included his work as a reproductive specialist, noting his quote natural ability in theeogeneology and quote experimental work with felions.
Was this one of those I got credit for my life experiences? Yes, where he's like, I've been birth and babies for a while.
This was yeah, and but this is for the dog.
This is the dog, and dog baby.
Has experimental work with felions. His understanding of the merits of specialization despite a desire to quote do them all. He got a diploma transcript letter of recommendation after the vet paid five and forty nine dollars to the university. He declined the offer to be made an honor student for another seventy five bucks. Well know MBAs are popular degrees among pets. Take Pete for Pete's sake. Pete was a four year old male, short haired half greyhound half terrier.
I was going to ask and he lived in the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in London. He was a shelter pup and Pete was on his way up in the world though right the BBC investigative program Newsnight was looking into the American University of London AUOL. They got a tip that AUOL was not on the up and up, so Newsnight found hundreds of senior executives that said that
they had degrees from AUOL. The program drew up a one page fake resume for a management consultant named Peter Smith known as Pete, living in South London, which included fifteen years a fake work experience, a fictitious undergrad degree from a UK university, and then Newsnight sent Pete's CV to AUOL, along with a completed application for a Master's in Business an MBA and the fifty pound application fee. And so this is going to be like credit for
prior learning like that. Yeah, So AUOL asks for applicants to provide photocopies of previous qualifications and a photograph of themselves. Newsnight was unable to provide either since the qualifications didn't exist and the applicant was a dog. They didn't send it and they still four days after they send in
what they have the application. AUOL sent Pete an email saying that his application for a degree based on previous experience had been successful and once the university had received his forty five hundred dollars pounds fee, he would be registered as an MBA graduate within about two weeks for
hundred Yeah. So the Newsnight reporter called back to check whether Pete would be required to submit any work, and the university representative said, quote, no, no. Apparently the a p e L, which is the accreditation of Previous Experiential Learning Board, awarded him the full degree immediately based on his qualification and his professional experience, so he doesn't have to do any courses.
Very very impressed, he said. He was a good boy, boy.
Very good boy, good job Petie. As for the hundreds of senior executives with a UOL.
Was across London across.
Newsnight named names and a bunch of them were blacklisted. It was nice.
I love it.
I did love that. Another high achieving MBA was Colby Nolan. Colby Nolan was a house cat, but not just any house cat. He belonged to a Deputy Attorney General. And thanks to Deputy Attorney General, Colby got an MBA in two thousand and four from Trinity Southern University, a Dallas based diploma mill. So first, the agent's got the then six year old FELI and a bachelor's degree in business administration for like three hundred bucks. Six years old cat prodigy saren Colby's application.
And see some of his pitches, I mean, his business plans were.
On acumen, off the charts. The application that Colby turned in said he had taken courses at a community college, that he worked at a fast food restaurant, babysat, and had a newspaper route.
I heard also included scratching, sniff stickers.
Yes, and a three point five GPA.
Oh okay, So the.
Institution tells Colby that due to the job experience listed on his application, don't forget. So it's a community college, a paper route, fast like McDonald's and babysitting. He's eligible for an executive MBA that he could obtain for another hundred bucks. Wow, you look at that moves so far that right, So they recognized town you can.
Babysit, you could run a fortun one hundred company, I think is what they're saying.
So once Colby had his degree, Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry Pappert filed a lawsuit against Trinity Southern University. December two thousand and four, the Texas Attorney General obtained a temporary restraining order under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act against Trinity Southern and its owners, and then the court also froze the assets of the school.
Good for them.
The owners had to pay one hundred thousand dollars in fines, were ordered not to market or promote fraudulent, substandard degree programs or represent their university as being accredited or affiliated with legitimate universities.
So they make all these millions and then they had to pay one hundred thousand dollars and every.
Time they're like, okay, pay us like one hundred grand and then say you're not going to do it again.
Promise me you're totally incentivize that by making you pay us the amount for stamps.
Well and okay, so we talked about high school diploma's, associate's degrees, nbas, that's bad enough, but as we said, the terrifying fake degrees, medical fake medical school degrees. And I have a pet one for that too, do you. In two thousand and seven, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation comedy show The Chasers Wore On everything went after diploma.
I like, it is just a bit everywhere everywhere? What if we do Thursday? Go look into diploma? But do you have a cat?
The host got a medical degree online for his dog's Sonny Doctor.
Sonny Doctor said, of course, the degree came.
From a notorious diploma mill Ashwood University, and the application cited Sonny's supposed like work experience, which included quote significant proctology experience sniffing other dogs bones. Like they just wrote it out bits and even with that in the application, he still got the degree and they only care about the money on it. So Ashwood University has since been listed as a non accredited degree supplier in the states of Michigan, Oregon and Texas.
You think a dog could get an archaeology degree for all that digg in bone into copper lights. I mean, it's just well.
And if you go to the doctor and the diploma on their walls from Ashwood University, yes, run. First thing you do is make sure that they write you scripts for whatever it is you want.
No, I got the window.
Then you book it out the window, then you run for it.
I don't want to be involved with that doctor on paper at all.
Just get the scripts and run.
No, I don't think they really were. You know, you didn't know. Do you think I can fake plausible deniability? Look at me, I've got degrees from Ashwood University.
Sarah was your ridiculous takeaway?
You know this is not to be too serious, but it's really sad to hear that we have reduced a degree to just something you flash, so people think they can go and buy one, and nobody's like I'm gonna look into that. It's like, oh, there it is, let's check that box. So they get thirty five hundred dollars. They get the box checked, and then now they're like, you know, the head account and whatever some telecom or whatever. Are you kidding me?
Well, it means less and less.
I guess, not an accountant, because accounts actually do have to get certified.
But an NBA or NBA.
Yeah, I'm saying some of the business somebody on the C suite.
I don't geah, right, I feel like it means less and less all the time. That especially if you're dropping than it really is, like on legitimate colleges, but like, yeah, it means think.
How much your college experience meant to you in terms of like forming who you are how you are, and the imprimature means something. And then now we reduce it to do you have a stamp and do you have some paper? Come up with something that has a lot of syllables. People will believe that.
I want to get a piece.
It's your ridiculous takeaway, PhD. That's I told you the you're getting that for your birthday. That's it's gonna be suitable for framing. You're gonna love it. It'd be great perfect.
Hey Captain D. Can you give me a talk back?
Oh my god, I love you.
Hey, this is Kelly, longtime listener. Enjoy the show. So, on the subject of doing math on air, there's a great local show here in Little Rock, Arkansas, Corey and Patrick sadly just ended. But one of their number one rules was you never do math on the air because for some reason you can never math when put on the spot or on the air.
So I say, it's not just never math on the air, just never math.
No.
But Corey and Patrick are one hundred percent right. I failed earlier in the show. I mean, look, boom, there you go. I can't do mad. I'm with you. I can't do math ever. But I don't want to say that for the kids.
You know, but deal math kids, But.
You're gonna put pressure yourself into youll math.
And get a legitimate degree in it. How about that. That's it. That's all we have.
You can tag that.
You can fuck this online at ridiculous crime dot com. We're also a ridiculous crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Leave us a talk back on the iHeart app. Don't talk about math, but thank you for Kelly. I do appreciate that reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave Cousten, Chancellor of Rude Dude University. Research is by Dean of Mysteries, Marissa Brown and Professor
of Anthropology the Store Andrea Song Sharpened Tear. The theme song is by Registrar of Bogusville State University College University, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton, pH D, M D J D O d I D l mn OP post wardrobe is provided by Botany five Hundred. Executive producers are Feli and MBA, Ben Bolan and Canine M. D. Noel Brown.
Redicus Crime Say It One More Times.
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