Twenty-one people have been arrested for allegedly helping to run a fake university, in a scheme that involved fraudulently obtaining student visas for more than 1,000 people.
With an official school seal, a colorful logo and even a mascot, the University of Northern New Jersey in Cranford looked like any other American school. Inside, however, is not what you would expect.
The school was a hoax—a complex sting operation set up by the U.S. government to catch a group of student visa scam artists.
The school had “no instructors or educators, it had no curriculum and no actual classes or educational activities ever occurred there,” U.S. attorney Paul J. Fishman said at a press conference yesterday, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
UNNJ allowed foreign “students” to work in the United States under student visas without ever attending an actual school. Pretending to be corrupt school officials, undercover agents worked with people described by Yahoo! News as “brokers, recruiters and employers”—People who would obtain fake documents for immigrants in exchange for commission. These middlemen were the ones who were indicted Tuesday, as they knew the school was fake but kept bringing students to UNNJ anyway.
“Virtually every defendant knowingly purchased fake documents from the undercover university, including fraudulent transcripts with made up classes and grades, diplomas, attendance sheets, student ID cards, sham receipts and even phony parking passes,” Fishman said.
According to BuzzFeed News, this is the first time U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been able to catch a whole network of people who help to make a fake university work. However, they have shut down other “visa mill” schools, such as Tri-Valley University, which had enrolled 1,500 students—the school’s founder was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that none of the “students” from UNNJ were arrested, but all must eventually appear in immigration court and may face deportation.