(Ecns.cn)--If a school promised to provide a doctorate degree in only one year with minimal effort and no dissertation, no one would believe them, would they? Think again.
In China, numerous fake education and training schools have managed to swindle people out of millions of yuan, promising diplomas and certifications from world famous universities.
Most of these "schools" publish bogus information on "official" websites and peddle their services via text messages on mobile phones.
Hard as it is to believe, Beijing police recently cleared up a case in which over 200 executive directors from many famous companies had been deceived by diploma fraud, involving over 10 million yuan ($1.6 million).
Sped-up "education"
After his arrest, a man surnamed Yu who had operated a dirty diploma business revealed some of the secrets of the industry.
In 2008, he fell in with some insiders who showed him how to get "authorization" from Columbia International College, which allowed him to register fake schools in the college's name and recruit students.
Yu then rented several offices in a building in Beijing's Haidian District, naming it as the management center of Columbia International College in China, which began openly recruiting students for MBA and DBA courses.
He hired teachers from other schools, rented classrooms and "also organized a trip for students to go abroad for several days," said Yu.
After only one year, students could get an MBA or DBA from Columbia International College, but only once they had paid the fees. A master's degree cost over 50,000 yuan ($7,825), while a doctoral degree cost more than 90,000 yuan ($14,085).
From 2008 to 2010, Yu and two other companies earned 2.07 million yuan ($323,959), according to information from the Haidian Procuratorate.
