Oxebridge has identified a new Indian certificate mill selling counterfeit ISO 9001 certificates which mimic the logo and designs of SGS.
Opastaja Quality Control alleges to be a US-based registrar, with a street address in Las Vegas. Upon further review, however, the address used belongs to a company operating at PhysicalAddress.com, renting its address for use by others who want to project a US presence when they are, in fact, from outside the country.
Google Maps image of the address used by Opastaja QC in Las Vegas.
The Whois listing for the company’s website www.opastaja.us lists an Indian phone number, “+91 9495701672.”
Opastaja claims to be the “world’s leading certification company.”
The certificates and logos used by Opastaja QC are then designed to imitate those of SGS, a legitimate and accredited ISO certification body.
Opastaja QC then claims accreditation by the “United Board for Accreditation,” which does not exist.
The company also issues wholly-fake “FDA” certifications, using the US Food and Drug Administration’s logo, for PPE products. Such practices are illegal under US law.
The Opastaja QC website appears in English, but is comprised nearly entirely of English text plagiarized from third-party sources, such as ISO.
The company claims to offer CE Mark product certifications which are used to ensure product safety, resulting in a likelihood that fake Opastaja certificates will put public safety at risk. The language used on the Opastaja website for its CE Mark offering appears identical to that of another Indian certificate mill, Times Certification Services, which purports to be based in the UK. Both companies used copy-and-paste text from a third source, SQS, and even failed to update the text to refer to their own company names. It is not clear if Opastaja and Times Cert are operated by the same persons.
Even the testimonials appearing on the Opastaja website have been plagiarized. One review by Dr. Arvind Naswa also appears on the website for another Indian certificate mill, QCL Certification Pvt. Ltd.
The Indian government has proven ineffective at reining in the explosion of fake ISO certificate mills from that country. Oxebridge has identified India as one of “Five Hotspots for Unqualified ISO Certificates,” alongside Russia, UAE, China, and Japan.
