In a major breakthrough, the CID sleuths of Nagaland Police have unearthed a well-organised racket of fake marksheets and other educational certificates of HSLC and HSSLC of students from Nagaland.

The investigating team arrested three racketeers from different parts of Assam.

The operation was carried out by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the CID, led by the deputy superintendent of police (crime).

Sharing the news on its Twitter handle, the Nagaland Police said the fake marksheets and other educational certificates of HSLC & HSSLC of students from Nagaland were being manufactured and used for commission of crime by gang of IT professionals based in Guwahati, the capital city of Assam.

The SIT has apprehended three accused, identified as Mohbubur Rashid Choudhury alias Manoj Das, Rahul Sen alias Rajat Yadav and Jinna Razzakul Alom alias Mitul Alom from various locations in Assam after a month of reconnaissance and surveillance.

The prime accused, Mohbubur Rashid Choudhury alias Manoj Das was arrested from Beltola in Guwahati while the two others were arrested from Krokrajhar district in Assam.

In a successful operation under the supervision of the DIG (CID) and SP (Crime), Nagaland, the SIT along with Cyber Cell and Cyber Forensic Lab, Chumukedima conducted simultaneous raids in Beltola, Guwahati and Krokrajhar.

During the operation, the team “recovered various incriminating documents and evidence such as fake marksheets, seals of high ranking officials of NBSE, cash, laptops and various electronic equipments used in the commission of crime”, the Nagaland Police said.

“The gang operates under the name Career Today Nagaland & Edumart Naga and impersonate themselves as director and executives of these fake career and placement consultants and would convince the institutes with the false promise of providing students for admission in their colleges,” it said.

“The gang would submit forged documents to the institutes and on the pretext of travelling and other logistic requirements had extracted huge amount of money from various institutes across the country,” Nagaland Police stated.

According to Nagaland Police, the case came to light when the matter was reported to the Nagaland Police headquarters by the chairman of Nagaland Board of Secondary Education (NBSE).

The NBSE alleged that marksheets and other educational certificates, sent to it for verification by various technical institutes from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, were found to be fake.

The accused are currently in the police custody and further investigation in on to unveil other accomplices involved in the case.

Further, Nagaland Police advises the public to be wary of such scams as criminals are taking advantage of the prevailing pandemic for commission of similar online frauds.