New AB Evades Turkish Law, Rewarded with IAF Regional Body Recognition

Graeme Drake’s corrupt IAF regional body, APAC, continues to cause global damage to the trust in ISO certifications by allowing questionable bodies to join the ranks of national accreditation bodies. Worse, Drake is doing it by abusing the United States’ position on free trade.

In most countries, national laws dictate that a country can only have one accreditation body. That body is usually, but not always, a department within a specific government ministry. In the EU, this approach is codified in European Commission laws. APAC’s home country, Australia, likewise has limited the country to a single accreditation body: JAS-ANZ.

The US, in its attempt to represent unfettered free trade without the intrusion of government, does not follow the practice. Instead, any organization can form itself as an accreditation body and compete with ANAB, which was once the only “officially recognized” AB in the US.

Australia’s Drake, in an attempt to put more money in his own pocket, has used APAC’s role as the official IAF regional body for the “Asia Pacific” region, to flood the market with fake accreditation bodies. These fake ABs then go out and produce thousands of equally-fake ISO certificates, in complete violation of the various ISO accreditation rules. The IAF, which granted APAC its recognition, does nothing, making itself complicit in this global scam.

Drake knows the US doesn’t adopt the “one accreditation body per nation” rule, so allows pop-up fake companies to join APAC while using a US address, and thus gain full recognition as if they were ANAB or JAS-ANZ. Even though APAC is supposed to be limited to countries that are, well, in the “Asia Pacific” region, one source told me that Drake views the United States “as an Asian Pacific country, since it has a coast on the Pacific Ocean.” I guess geography doesn’t matter so long as you get paid enough.

Turkey, by Way of I-95

Meet the newest fake member of APAC, the National Accreditation Center (NAC). Originally founded in Turkey, NAC representative Naz Ayvaz just admitted outright that the move to the US was simply to circumvent Turkey’s “one accreditation body per nation” rule:

We were originally established in Izmir, Türkiye. However, after passing a law stating that no other accreditation institution could be found here other then Türkak Turkey, we moved our headquarters to America.

You would think the Turkish government might have something to say about a body that is (a) managed out of Turkey, (b) hires Turkish staff, (c) serves Turkish clients, and (d) only uses a US address to circumvent the law. But, so far, Turkey hasn’t taken action.

Things get worse, and fast.

The US address claimed by NAC appears to be a site used by an acquaintance or business partner of the NAC management. The address —  1850 NW 84th Street, Suite 114 in Doral FL  — is actually for a hurricane window company called Linea Rossa. Official Florida records show this is owned by Erhan Arda Azman of Turkey, which is far too much of a coincidence to be one.

Next, the LinkedIn profile for NAC claims the company has between “201 – 500 employees.” That’s bullshit on its face.

The phone number shown on the official NAC website resolves to the personal cell phone of someone named Rayko Morejon, and does not appear to be a commercial phone number at all.

The NAC website, naturally, lists not a single human being, a common tactic for fake CBs and ABs. The site does include, however, a complaint form hosted by Yandex, the controversial Russian search engine company, meaning any complaints filed against NAC are run through Russian servers. Totally trustworthy!

The NAC enterprise does appear to be a family operation. Connecting the dots from LinkedIn profiles, it appears it was founded by the father, Salih Ayvaz, who may have had a Miami address at one time or another. Naz Ayvaz, I’m assuming, is his daughter. The rest of the alleged “employees” of NAC are all in Turkey.

Finally, despite the NAC publications claiming that it is a fully registered LLC within the State of Florida, the official business registry for Florida — Sunbiz.org — has no listing at all for NAC. When asked about this, Naz Ayvaz claimed:

We are planning to come back to America around February. The organization should actually be active in Sunbizz [sic], but let me check again.

So despite having no real presence in the United States, having openly set up a fake location to circumvent Turkish law, having lied about its size, location, staff and legal status, APAC nevertheless allowed NAC to join its ranks.

APAC previously allowed this with the formal recognition of the United Accreditation Forum, an Indian AB that set up shop in a friend’s house in the United States, and has been the subject of multiple ethics and fraud probes. Literally while he was supposed to be processing complaints against UAF, Drake signed off on granting UAF full APAC membership, and now the shady group sits alongside ANAB and A2LA as if they were equals.

IAAC Membership, Too, Because Why Not?

Meanwhile, the western regional IAF group, IAAC, lists NAC as a “full member,” but curiously does not include the scope of accreditations. To be a full member implies that IAAC performed a full peer evaluation of NAC and its offices, which would appear impossible given the fact that the offices are for a storm window company, and not NAC. I’ve written to IAAC’s head, Victor Gandy, to get clarification.

The entire mess highlights just how the IAF has abandoned all pretense of operating a functioning accreditation oversight mechanism. Instead, the IAF’s Elva Nilsen and its unknown “Board” have outsourced all the work to shady people like Drake and Gandy, who allow anyone to become accreditation bodies without the proper oversight. They then paper over the scandals with lots of official-sounding procedures and logo-laden “certificates,” without ever being able to prove they did any actual peer evaluations.

So it is likely NAC will join UAF and the others in pumping out fake ISO certificates by the thousands, risking the lives of the public due to defective products being sold under allegedly “accredited” conformity assessment audits.