巴基斯坦公司的发财之道 网上卖假美国文凭

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.

从网站上看，这是一个巨大的教育帝国：数百所大学和高中，拥有优雅的名字，教授们在阳光斑驳的美国校园里微笑着。

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.

它们的网页看上去精致而可信，上面提供了几十门学科的网上学位，比如护理、土木工程。它们有CNN的iReport网站热情洋溢的背书，有充满活力的视频推荐，以及带有美国国务卿约翰·克里(John Kerry)签名的国务院认证证书。

“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.”

“我们拥有最具名望的教员，”一个据称是法学院院长的女人在宣传片中吹嘘道。“来成为纽福大学(Newford University)一员，在卓越的天空中翱翔吧。”

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.

可是仔细观察后发现，这外表却如海市蜃楼般闪烁。新闻报道是杜撰出来的，教授们都是雇来的演员扮演的，大学校园只不过是电脑服务器上的一些免费图片。他们颁发的学位未经认证。

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.

实际上，这个看起来囊括至少370个网站的虚拟学院王国，基本上没什么是真的——除了它们每年从世界各地的数千人那里得来的收益，据估计达数千万美元。这些钱都支付给了一个行事隐秘的巴基斯坦软件公司。

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.

那家叫Axact的公司位于港口城市卡拉奇，雇佣了两千余名员工，自称为巴基斯坦最大的软件出口公司，拥有硅谷式员工福利，比如游泳池和游艇。

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.

Axact的确在销售一些软件应用，但根据曾经的内部人士提供的消息、公司记录和对其网站的详细分析可以得出，该公司的主要业务，是在网络时代把古老的假学位骗术变成全球范围的大骗局。

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.

随着人们对网络教育的热情不断高涨，这家公司开始大力将自己的学校和门户网站推向网络搜索结果的醒目位置，吸引潜在的国际客户。

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.

据前公司员工透露，在公司的总部，电话销售员们昼夜不停地轮班工作。有时候他们迎合了部分顾客的需求，这些顾客心里清楚自己是在花钱买可以迅速到手的可疑学位。但大部分时候，这些销售员在蒙骗那些追求真正教育的人，极力怂恿他们注册那些不可能成为现实的课程，或者向他们保证个人经历就足以给他们带来一张文凭。

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.

为了提高利润，销售员们一般会进一步使用精心设计的伎俩，包括假冒美国政府官员，来说服客户购买昂贵的证书或鉴定文件。

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.

据公司的前雇员和反诈骗专家估计，这家公司每月的收益可达数百万美元，这些钱在一张离岸公司组成的网络里循环。与此同时，借助网络代理服务、随时准备应战的法律策略和巴基斯坦长久以来的监管缺失，作为这个虚假教育帝国拥有者的Axact始终隐藏在迷雾中。

“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.”

“客户以为这是一所大学，但这不是大学，”去年10月离开Axact的质量管理员亚西尔·贾姆沙伊德(Yasir Jamshaid)说。“一切都是为了赚钱。”

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.”

上周记者曾多次提出采访要求，周四又寄给公司领导层一系列详细问题，Axact对此的回应是在周六向《纽约时报》发出一封律师函。信中对所有质疑予以否认，并指责一名时报记者“提供给我们客户一个不完整的故事和阴谋论。”

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.

2013年11月份，在一个关于巴基斯坦媒体部门的采访中，Axact公司的创始人、首席执行官沙耶布·艾哈迈徳·谢赫(Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh)表示，Axact是一家“IT和IT网络服务公司，”面向的是中小型企业。“我们每天基本上要做几千个项目，有很多的顾客”，他说道，不过他拒绝透露顾客的名字。

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.

《纽约时报》查阅了Axcat公司内部记录以及法庭文件，证实了Axact前雇员所披露的信息的可靠性。《纽约时报》还对370多家携带Axact数字指纹的网站进行了分析，其中包括学校网站，一些提供支持的搜索门户网站，虚假认证机构，招聘机构，语言学校，甚至包括一家律师事务所。

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.

谢赫最近正致力于成为巴基斯坦最具影响力的媒体大亨。过去两年里，Axact已经在修建演播室，大肆招募知名记者，为计划今年开始运营的电视和报业集团Bol做准备。

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.

至于这个雄心万丈的投资项目是如何筹措经费的，巴基斯坦国内有着各种猜测。Axact已提起数宗未决诉讼，谢赫发表公开声明驳斥媒体竞争者的指控，否认Axact得到了巴基斯坦军方或有组织犯罪集团的支持。不过有一点很清楚，鉴于Axact的文凭生意规模之大，新的媒体业务很可能要靠假文凭提供资金支持。

“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.”

“毫无疑问，这可能是我们所见过的最大的诈骗运作，”一直在调查Axact的艾伦·伊泽尔（Allen Ezell）说道。“真是个惊天大骗局。”伊泽尔是美国联邦调查局退休特工，著有一本关于文凭欺诈的书。

Building a Web

打造一张网络

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.

乍一看，Axact的大学和高中只在外表上有一些相似之处：华丽的网站，免费的美国热线电话，有意挑选的一些看着眼熟的名字，比如巴克利(Barkley)，哥伦比亚纳(Columbiana)和林肯山(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.

但还有一些蛛丝马迹能表明它们同属一家公司，很多网站都和一些虚假的认证机构有关联，并且有相同的图形，比如绿色的浮动窗口，上面有一个头戴耳机的女性，在邀请顾客进行对话。

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.

技术方面也有着共同之处：一片片完全相同的定制代码，并且大部分网站的流量都转向两台服务器，它们由注册地在塞浦路斯和拉脱维亚的公司掌管着。

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.

经五名前雇员证实，这些网站很多是Axact内部创建的，主管们把网上学校视为有利可图的牌子，可以一丝不苟地创建起来，进行强有力的市场推销，时不时用一些骗术。

Real-Life Troubles

真实世界的麻烦

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.

很多买学位的顾客是为升职铺路，或者为个人履历表增色，他们很清楚自己买来的文凭相当于山寨劳力士手表。其中一些人还露了马脚。

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.

美国的一宗2008年的联邦起诉显示，有350名联邦政府雇员持有伪造证书，其中包括美国司法部和国务院的官员。证书出自华盛顿州一个文凭伪造作坊，跟Axact没有关联。

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.

此前曾有媒体报道过Axact名下的一些学校网站存在欺诈，不过并未找出公司的所有者。2013年，前奥林匹克游泳教练德鲁·约翰森(Drew Johansen)被媒体指出是Axact假造的罗克韦尔大学(Rochville University)的毕业生。

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.

有时候，相关影响会带来很大的混乱。在英国，警方不得不重新审查持假证的警界犯罪学专家、罗克韦尔大学毕业生莫里森经办的700起案件。“这看起来比上真正的大学容易，”莫里森在2007年受审时说。

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.

去年5月，阿布扎比一家建筑公司的初级会计莫汉(Mohan)花了3300美元（约合2万元人民币），以为自己购买的是格兰特城大学(Grant Town University)持续18个月的企业管理硕士网络课程。这所大学的所有人正是Axact。

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.

一名销售代理向来自印度的莫汉保证，他会得到优质的教育。但他只在邮箱里收到了一台廉价的平板电脑，上面有学校的标识，但电脑里没有教育应用，也没有课程作业。接下来他又收到了一系列要求，执意让他再次交钱。39岁的他要求只公布名字中的一部分。

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.

当一名自称美国大使馆官员的人打电话来斥责他没有英语语言方面的资格时，莫汉同意向Axact开办的网站“全球英语语言培训认证机构”(Global Institute of English Language Training Certification)支付7500美元。

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.

几周后，那名男子再次打来电话，敦促莫汉购买由克里签署的美国国务院认证证书。莫汉又用信用卡付了7500美元。

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.

后来到了9月，另一名男子打来电话，这一次是说他代表阿联酋政府。该男子警告称，如果不让学位在当地变得合法，莫汉可能会被驱逐出境。惊慌失措的莫汉和他的销售代表说了此事，同意以分期付款的形式支付1.8万美元。

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.

到10月，他已经欠下3万美元，陷入抑郁之中。他不再给身在印度的父母寄钱，也没让刚生完孩子的妻子知晓自己的忧虑。

“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.”

“她一直问我为什么那么紧张，”莫汉不久前在阿布扎比的家附近接受采访时说。“但我没法和任何人说。”

But some employees, despite the good salaries and perks they enjoyed, became disillusioned by the true nature of Axact’s business.

尽管工资福利优越，但还是有一些雇员对Axact业务的真正本质大失所望。

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.

贾姆沙伊德曾于去年在内审部门工作过三个月，负责监控客户电话。在那期间，他越来越对自己听到的内容感到震惊：顾客被骗数万美元，含泪要求退款却被拒。

“I had a gut feeling that it was not right,” he said.

“我的直觉认为这么做是不对的，”他说。

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.

10月，贾姆沙伊德从Axact辞职，搬去了阿联酋，同时也带走了22名客户付款的内部记录，总价值超过60万美元。

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.

自那时以来，贾姆沙伊德联系到了这些客户中的大部分人，提出利用他对Axact内部规定的了解，为他们拿到退款。有几个人拒绝了他的提议，以为这是骗他们的新花招。但包括莫汉在内的几个人接受了他的提议。

After weeks of fraught negotiations, Axact refunded Mohan $31,300 last fall.

经过数周的困难谈判后，Axact在去年秋天将3.13万美元退还给了莫汉。

The Indian accountant found some satisfaction, but mostly felt chastened and embarrassed.

这名来自印度的会计感到好了一些，但主要还是觉得愧疚和尴尬。

“I was a fool,” he said, shaking his head. “It could have ruined me.”

“我是个傻瓜，”他摇着头说。“这事差点把我毁了。”

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.

Axact动用了法律威胁，来吓阻记者、竞争对手和批评人士。2006年，在Axact的压力下，英国的主要报纸《星期日邮报》(The Mail on Sunday)从网上撤下了一篇文章。后来，该公司用一家似乎是编造出来的法律事务所，逼退了博茨瓦纳的一个消费者权益组织。后者曾对Axact开办的海德威大学(Headway University)提出批评。

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.

2007年，Axac还向美国的一家法院起诉，控告一家美国公司。名为学生网络资源(Student Network Resources)的这家美国公司是Axact在论文写作业务领域的竞争对手，称Axact是一家“外国诈骗网站”。该美国公司提起反诉，并被判获得70万美元赔偿金。但公司律师表示，并未收到损害赔偿金。

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.

在2013年接受《纽约时报》的采访时，Axact的首席执行官谢赫承认，公司在英国、美国和巴基斯坦的媒体和网络上受到了指责，并指出Axact频频从法律上作出强硬回应。