巴基斯坦公司的發財之道 網上賣假美國文憑

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.

從網站上看，這是一個巨大的教育帝國：數百所大學和高中，擁有優雅的名字，教授們在陽光斑駁的美國校園裏微笑着。

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.

它們的網頁看上去精緻而可信，上面提供了幾十門學科的網上學位，比如護理、土木工程。它們有CNN的iReport網站熱情洋溢的背書，有充滿活力的視頻推薦，以及帶有美國國務卿約翰·克里(John Kerry)簽名的國務院認證證書。

“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.”

“我們擁有最具名望的教員，”一個據稱是法學院院長的女人在宣傳片中吹噓道。“來成爲紐福大學(Newford University)一員，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.

可是仔細觀察後發現，這外表卻如海市蜃樓般閃爍。新聞報道是杜撰出來的，教授們都是僱來的演員扮演的，大學校園只不過是電腦服務器上的一些免費圖片。他們頒發的學位未經認證。

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.

實際上，這個看起來囊括至少370個網站的虛擬學院王國，基本上沒什麼是真的——除了它們每年從世界各地的數千人那裏得來的收益，據估計達數千萬美元。這些錢都支付給了一個行事隱祕的巴基斯坦軟件公司。

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的公司位於港口城市卡拉奇，僱傭了兩千餘名員工，自稱爲巴基斯坦最大的軟件出口公司，擁有硅谷式員工福利，比如游泳池和遊艇。

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的確在銷售一些軟件應用，但根據曾經的內部人士提供的消息、公司記錄和對其網站的詳細分析可以得出，該公司的主要業務，是在網絡時代把古老的假學位騙術變成全球範圍的大騙局。

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.

隨着人們對網絡教育的熱情不斷高漲，這家公司開始大力將自己的學校和門戶網站推向網絡搜索結果的醒目位置，吸引潛在的國際客戶。

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.

據前公司員工透露，在公司的總部，電話銷售員們晝夜不停地輪班工作。有時候他們迎合了部分顧客的需求，這些顧客心裏清楚自己是在花錢買可以迅速到手的可疑學位。但大部分時候，這些銷售員在矇騙那些追求真正教育的人，極力慫恿他們註冊那些不可能成爲現實的課程，或者向他們保證個人經歷就足以給他們帶來一張文憑。

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.

爲了提高利潤，銷售員們一般會進一步使用精心設計的伎倆，包括假冒美國政府官員，來說服客戶購買昂貴的證書或鑑定文件。

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.

據公司的前僱員和反詐騙專家估計，這家公司每月的收益可達數百萬美元，這些錢在一張離岸公司組成的網絡裏循環。與此同時，藉助網絡代理服務、隨時準備應戰的法律策略和巴基斯坦長久以來的監管缺失，作爲這個虛假教育帝國擁有者的Axact始終隱藏在迷霧中。

“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.”

“客戶以爲這是一所大學，但這不是大學，”去年10月離開Axact的質量管理員亞西爾·賈姆沙伊德(Yasir Jamshaid)說。“一切都是爲了賺錢。”

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.”

上週記者曾多次提出採訪要求，週四又寄給公司領導層一系列詳細問題，Axact對此的迴應是在週六向《紐約時報》發出一封律師函。信中對所有質疑予以否認，並指責一名時報記者“提供給我們客戶一個不完整的故事和陰謀論。”

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，在一個關於巴基斯坦媒體部門的採訪中，Axact公司的創始人、首席執行官沙耶布·艾哈邁徳·謝赫(Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh)表示，Axact是一家“IT和IT網絡服務公司，”面向的是中小型企業。“我們每天基本上要做幾千個項目，有很多的顧客”，他說道，不過他拒絕透露顧客的名字。

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.

《紐約時報》查閱了Axcat公司內部記錄以及法庭文件，證實了Axact前僱員所披露的信息的可靠性。《紐約時報》還對370多家攜帶Axact數字指紋的網站進行了分析，其中包括學校網站，一些提供支持的搜索門戶網站，虛假認證機構，招聘機構，語言學校，甚至包括一家律師事務所。

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.

謝赫最近正致力於成爲巴基斯坦最具影響力的媒體大亨。過去兩年裏，Axact已經在修建演播室，大肆招募知名記者，爲計劃今年開始運營的電視和報業集團Bol做準備。

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.

至於這個雄心萬丈的投資項目是如何籌措經費的，巴基斯坦國內有着各種猜測。Axact已提起數宗未決訴訟，謝赫發表公開聲明駁斥媒體競爭者的指控，否認Axact得到了巴基斯坦軍方或有組織犯罪集團的支持。不過有一點很清楚，鑑於Axact的文憑生意規模之大，新的媒體業務很可能要靠假文憑提供資金支持。

“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.”

“毫無疑問，這可能是我們所見過的最大的詐騙運作，”一直在調查Axact的艾倫·伊澤爾（Allen Ezell）說道。“真是個驚天大騙局。”伊澤爾是美國聯邦調查局退休特工，著有一本關於文憑欺詐的書。

Building a Web

打造一張網絡

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的大學和高中只在外表上有一些相似之處：華麗的網站，免費的美國熱線電話，有意挑選的一些看着眼熟的名字，比如巴克利(Barkley)，哥倫比亞納(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.

但還有一些蛛絲馬跡能表明它們同屬一家公司，很多網站都和一些虛假的認證機構有關聯，並且有相同的圖形，比如綠色的浮動窗口，上面有一個頭戴耳機的女性，在邀請顧客進行對話。

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.

技術方面也有着共同之處：一片片完全相同的定製代碼，並且大部分網站的流量都轉向兩臺服務器，它們由註冊地在塞浦路斯和拉脫維亞的公司掌管着。

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.

經五名前僱員證實，這些網站很多是Axact內部創建的，主管們把網上學校視爲有利可圖的牌子，可以一絲不苟地創建起來，進行強有力的市場推銷，時不時用一些騙術。

Real-Life Troubles

真實世界的麻煩

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.

很多買學位的顧客是爲升職鋪路，或者爲個人履歷表增色，他們很清楚自己買來的文憑相當於山寨勞力士手錶。其中一些人還露了馬腳。

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.

美國的一宗2008年的聯邦起訴顯示，有350名聯邦政府僱員持有僞造證書，其中包括美國司法部和國務院的官員。證書出自華盛頓州一個文憑僞造作坊，跟Axact沒有關聯。

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.

此前曾有媒體報道過Axact名下的一些學校網站存在欺詐，不過並未找出公司的所有者。2013年，前奧林匹克游泳教練德魯·約翰森(Drew Johansen)被媒體指出是Axact假造的羅克韋爾大學(Rochville University)的畢業生。

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.

有時候，相關影響會帶來很大的混亂。在英國，警方不得不重新審查持假證的警界犯罪學專家、羅克韋爾大學畢業生莫里森經辦的700起案件。“這看起來比上真正的大學容易，”莫里森在2007年受審時說。

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，阿布扎比一家建築公司的初級會計莫漢(Mohan)花了3300美元（約合2萬元人民幣），以爲自己購買的是格蘭特城大學(Grant Town University)持續18個月的企業管理碩士網絡課程。這所大學的所有人正是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.

一名銷售代理向來自印度的莫漢保證，他會得到優質的教育。但他只在郵箱裏收到了一臺廉價的平板電腦，上面有學校的標識，但電腦裏沒有教育應用，也沒有課程作業。接下來他又收到了一系列要求，執意讓他再次交錢。39歲的他要求只公佈名字中的一部分。

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.

當一名自稱美國大使館官員的人打電話來斥責他沒有英語語言方面的資格時，莫漢同意向Axact開辦的網站“全球英語語言培訓認證機構”(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.

幾周後，那名男子再次打來電話，敦促莫漢購買由克里簽署的美國國務院認證證書。莫漢又用信用卡付了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.

後來到了9月，另一名男子打來電話，這一次是說他代表阿聯酋政府。該男子警告稱，如果不讓學位在當地變得合法，莫漢可能會被驅逐出境。驚慌失措的莫漢和他的銷售代表說了此事，同意以分期付款的形式支付1.8萬美元。

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，他已經欠下3萬美元，陷入抑鬱之中。他不再給身在印度的父母寄錢，也沒讓剛生完孩子的妻子知曉自己的憂慮。

“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.”

“她一直問我爲什麼那麼緊張，”莫漢不久前在阿布扎比的家附近接受採訪時說。“但我沒法和任何人說。”

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

儘管工資福利優越，但還是有一些僱員對Axact業務的真正本質大失所望。

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.

賈姆沙伊德曾於去年在內審部門工作過三個月，負責監控客戶電話。在那期間，他越來越對自己聽到的內容感到震驚：顧客被騙數萬美元，含淚要求退款卻被拒。

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

“我的直覺認爲這麼做是不對的，”他說。

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，賈姆沙伊德從Axact辭職，搬去了阿聯酋，同時也帶走了22名客戶付款的內部記錄，總價值超過60萬美元。

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.

自那時以來，賈姆沙伊德聯繫到了這些客戶中的大部分人，提出利用他對Axact內部規定的瞭解，爲他們拿到退款。有幾個人拒絕了他的提議，以爲這是騙他們的新花招。但包括莫漢在內的幾個人接受了他的提議。

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

經過數週的困難談判後，Axact在去年秋天將3.13萬美元退還給了莫漢。

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

這名來自印度的會計感到好了一些，但主要還是覺得愧疚和尷尬。

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

“我是個傻瓜，”他搖着頭說。“這事差點把我毀了。”

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動用了法律威脅，來嚇阻記者、競爭對手和批評人士。2006年，在Axact的壓力下，英國的主要報紙《星期日郵報》(The Mail on Sunday)從網上撤下了一篇文章。後來，該公司用一家似乎是編造出來的法律事務所，逼退了博茨瓦納的一個消費者權益組織。後者曾對Axact開辦的海德威大學(Headway University)提出批評。

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還向美國的一家法院起訴，控告一家美國公司。名爲學生網絡資源(Student Network Resources)的這家美國公司是Axact在論文寫作業務領域的競爭對手，稱Axact是一家“外國詐騙網站”。該美國公司提起反訴，並被判獲得70萬美元賠償金。但公司律師表示，並未收到損害賠償金。

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《紐約時報》的採訪時，Axact的首席執行官謝赫承認，公司在英國、美國和巴基斯坦的媒體和網絡上受到了指責，並指出Axact頻頻從法律上作出強硬迴應。