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Pakistan Says It Has Evidence Against Axact, a Fake Diploma Company Pakistan Says It Has Evidence Against Axact, a Fake Diploma Company
(about 1 hour later)
KARACHI, Pakistan — Pakistan’s interior minister said Saturday that a preliminary investigation had uncovered evidence of wrongdoing at Axact, the Karachi-based software company accused of making millions of dollars from fake diplomas, and that investigators would seek assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Interpol. KARACHI, Pakistan — Several senior journalists resigned from a developing Pakistani television network, Bol, on Saturday, in the latest fallout from a crisis engulfing the channel’s parent company, Axact, a software firm that profited immensely from international sales of fake diplomas.
Investigators who raided Axact offices in Karachi and Islamabad on Tuesday, after the publication of a detailed report on the company in The New York Times, collected “serious, substantive evidence,” the interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said. A decision on whether to file an official criminal report will be made in the next 10 days, he said. The defections were led by Bol’s editor in chief, Kamran Khan, and came just hours after Pakistan’s interior minister announced that the government was broadening its inquiry into Axact and intended to seek help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Interpol. Axact has been under intense scrutiny since federal investigators raided the company’s offices on Tuesday, after the publication of an article in The New York Times that detailed how the Karachi-based software company made millions of dollars from selling the fake degrees.
Interpol and the F.B.I. may be able to provide information “on the universities that have come onto the radar,” Mr. Khan said. “It is also possible that the British legal or law enforcement authorities may also be contacted for legal assistance.” The scandal had already jeopardized the livelihood of at least 2,000 employees at Axact, and now it casts a shadow over Bol, which had declared ambitions to become Pakistan’s top television network.
Mr. Khan said that a number of Pakistani government bodies were being asked to provide information on Axact’s activities. A number of people, he added, had come forward with information. Mr. Khan is one of Pakistan’s best-known journalists. He quit a prime-time show at the rival Geo News channel last year to lead Bol. Others who resigned include Bol’s president, Azhar Abbas, and at least three prominent journalists who had joined the network over the past year.
The investigation could be expanded to include money laundering charges, he said. Bol embarked on an aggressive recruitment campaign almost two years ago, poaching many senior and midlevel journalists from rival networks. Bol plans to have two channels, initially, as well as Urdu- and English-language newspapers.
“The accounts are also being verified, and some are being seized,” Mr. Khan told reporters in Islamabad. “The inflow of millions of dollars that has been received — it needs to be seen where it came from and if Axact can provide information on this. If there is enough evidence, then it is possible that this can be broadened to include money laundering. The flow of money has not been identified as yet.” As Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, the founder and chief executive officer of Axact, came under criticism in the news media last week, Bol started test transmissions. Mr. Shaikh said the channel would begin operations in mid-June, earlier than expected.
Mr. Khan also noted that if the government had not acted quickly to investigate Axact, there was a chance that records from the company would have been deleted. But the government investigation into Axact appears to have slowed that momentum. The interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, told reporters on Saturday in Islamabad, the capital, that a preliminary investigation had uncovered “serious, substantive evidence” against Axact.
Investigators at the two Axact offices last week took away several computers, servers and documents, and also interviewed six executives in Islamabad. Mr. Khan said he hoped that the F.B.I., Interpol and possibly British law enforcement could provide information on “the universities that have come onto the radar,” a reference to hundreds of education websites, many with American- or British-sounding names, run by Axact.
On Friday night, Axact’s chief executive, Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh, appeared on a talk show to defend the company, but his comments were rambling and he deflected all questions. He refused to talk about who his partners and associates were, claiming that his competitors would use that information against him. In another statement, uploaded to Facebook, Mr. Shaikh appealed to the leader of the Pakistan Army and the chief justice of the Supreme Court to start a judicial inquiry into the accusations against Axact. He said that the investigation might expand to include money laundering and that a decision on whether to file a criminal report — the first step in a prosecution — would be made in the next 10 days.
Investigators at the Axact offices in Karachi and Islamabad took away several computers, servers and documents last week, and also interviewed six executives in Islamabad.