JASANZ is a poor shadow of what it once was, as it now embraces the fake certificate mill industry and helps spread fraudulent certificates all over Australia and the world.
Scammers Gonna Scam
Meet Australia Pacific Industry Certification (APIC), a fake certificate mill that operates out of a post office box in Australia. APIC sells both consulting and certification services, and even offers a free integrated management system template manual. Over on YouTube you can see a creepy actor telling you they will create your QMS documentation and then perform the ISO 9001 audit, all in one package.
Until yesterday, APIC was claiming to do all of this while holding JASANZ accreditation, too:
I sent an email over to JASANZ about this, but was sure not to frame it as a “formal complaint” since JASANZ has adopted the IAF practice of banning any complaints originating from Oxebridge, no matter how valid. Shockingly, they replied. Not so shockingly, they dismissed the matter.
You see, I also copied APIC, and they must have scrambled to change their website right before JASANZ could click on it. Now, the website looks like this:
This was enough to fool Kim Wadey, the Corporate Support Officer at JASANZ. She wrote:
I have viewed APIC’s website and they are not claiming to be JASANZ accredited, rather an organisation delivering certification services under the JASANZ Accredited Certification Body (CB), QMS International Certifications Pty ltd (QMSI).
I can confirm QMSI are a JASANZ Accredited CB however, for verification of their certification please contact QMSI representatives Sanjay Kumar Kaushik and Siddharth Kaushik via info@qms-int.com.
Yes, you knew there’d be an Indian CB involved in this, didn’t you? And, sure enough, they have APIC listed as an official site.
JASANZ Gets Out the Scissors
What’s concerning is that in Wadey’s response, she cropped out all the parts of the APIC website that clearly stated they are still claiming accreditation. Here is the cropped version Wadey sent, which cuts out the words “Our Accreditation” and states that the accreditation validates that “we” (meaning APIC) undergo JASANZ audits. She even cropped out the JASANZ logo!
Well, unfortunately, Kim Wadey is still wrong, even given her attempts to quite literally cut the inconvenient parts out. None of what she said is allowed under ISO 17021-1, that pesky standard that JASANZ exists to enforce (emphasis added):
5.2.9 The certification body’s activities shall not be marketed or offered as linked with the activities of an organization that provides management system consultancy.
5.2.5 The certification body and any part of the same legal entity and any entity under the organizational control of the certification body [see 9.5.1.2, bullet b)] shall not offer or provide management system consultancy.
5.2.8 The certification body shall not outsource audits to a management system consultancy organization, as this poses an unacceptable threat to the impartiality of the certification body (see 7.5).
In short, QMSI isn’t allowed to “franchise” auditing service to APIC at all, and APIC isn’t allowed to sell consulting work and then certify it later, even if they switch hats.
APIC appears to be the brainchild of Armin Honarasa, and I figured that out by doing some dumb-level sleuthing. Over on Facebook, Honarasa is the only person who ever “liked” posts by APIC. Then, sure enough, his LinkedIn profile has him listed as its Manager. Reverse searches then suggest he’s APIC’s only employee… but I can’t be entirely sure of that.
Anyway, JASANZ has just given up pretending to care about the one thing they’re supposed to — accredit stuff — and has settled back into making really bad webpages and cashing checks for doing nothing.
If you think all of this is bad now, just imagine how it will be in just another month, when IAF and ILAC formally launch GAC as a for-profit company in New Zealand, and stop pretending to be a “non-profit” organization altogether. Nothing will hold them back from globalizing the accreditation fraud, and JASANZ can relax.
UPDATE 19 December 2025: Someone — most likely Armin Honarasa of APIC — has hired a Pakistani scammer company to send a flood of emails, SMS messages, WhatsApp messages, and even phone calls, demanding this article be removed. The emails are as painfully amateurish as they are hilarious, accusing Oxebridge of violations of the UN Human Rights Treaty, DCMA copyright, GDPR, and of promoting terrorism… all for the article you see above. The messages all use fake names, including “Munir Khan,” “M. Bijar,” and “Adnan Ahmad,” and hide their identities througḥ various disposable Gmail addresses. In one case, the sender of a WhatsApp message left a return number that tracks back to a US-based investment manager, Jimmy Kourani. I don’t know if Kourani is on this scam, or if someone is using his number.
In many of the messages, the sender falsely claims to be an attorney, even as they levy false accusations of “blackmail” and “extortion.” Actual lawyers would not do this.
Ironically, filing fraudulent DMCA notices is illegal itself, as is falsely accusing someone of crimes. In Pakistan, defamation is a criminal offense, not just civil.
Now, so far, I cannot be sure who exactly is sending these, as the messages never name who they claim is being defamed. If they did, they’d put a target on their back for law enforcement, so they have to mask their identity. But, it could only be one of three subjects of the article: APIC, QMSI, or JASANZ. Honarasa threw himself under the suspicion bus by being the only one of the parties to have blocked me on LinkedIn. It’s not proof, but it provides some direction, anyway.
Scammers in India and Pakistan offer “reputation repair” services that they claim will get articles like this removed from the internet. In reality, they steal the money of people and then do boneheaded things like spam fake DCMA notices in the hope someone will be dumb enough to yield. It never works, but they get paid. In this case, it’s likely scammers scamming other scammers.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
