If you’re struggling to keep up with the ongoing scandals related to AiNET and Deepak Jain, you’re not alone. Just a day after I published my last update on their shenanigans with fake ISO certificates, they went out and bought even more.
Quick recap:
- Jain was indicted for claiming to have certified servers which he used to get a contract with the SEC. The US Dept. of Justice says those server certs were fake. He faces decades in prison.
- I then found out that AiNET’s various ISO certificates were also fake, issued by an unaccredited certificate mill called “Inspection Board.” After confronting the owner of Inspection Board, he wiped all references to IB from his LinkedIn profile, and the certs disappeared.
- 48 hours later, the certs were replaced with “valid” certificates listed on CertSearch, and issued by the Egyptian certification body, OSS Middle East. OSS is fully accredited by Egypt’s national accredtation body. EGAC, which is known for fraud.
- I filed a complaint with OSS, EGAC and everyone else, and now — as of November 11 — we see the OSS certificates issued to AiNET were removed. However, OSS never followed ISO 17021-1, and never acknowledged receipt of the complaint. The certs just disappeared as magically as they had appeared, and so far, OSS doesn’t seem likely to face any repercussions.
Now we find two new certificates up on CertSearch — which IAF insists are “valid” — but also entirely fake. These are for ISO 20000-1 (IT service management) and ISO 22301 (business continuity management systems.) The new certs, both issued November 8th — similarly impossible to be real — were issued by Americo Quality Standards Registech Pvt Ltd.
If that name is familiar, it’s because I previously revealed “Americo” is a fake certificate mill operated by a guy who changes his name every five minutes and uses a host of bogus US and UK addresses to hide the fact that he really operates out of Pune, India. But Americo is “accredited” by UAF and Parveen Sadana; if that name sounds familiar, he’s the guy who claims to be a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit in the US and has never filed tax returns.
So AiNET just jumped from one set of scammers (Mohamed Ellethey & Inspection Board) to another (OSS Middle East Certifications & EGAC) and then another (Americo & UAF). At this rate, we need to create a new metric for AiNET: certificates issued per minute.
The entire thing shows what an absolute disaster the IAF is, despite their very public “memorandum of understanding” signing events. The IAF has no control over any of this, and fake certificates are absolutely getting uploaded into CertSearch.
Meanwhile, my formal complaint with OSS will get derailed, despite it still being valid. They should be investigated by EGAC and the IAF regional body ARAC. But since the certs “disappeared,” OSS will likely get away scot-free. Now, instead, the issue switches to Americo and UAF, which is under the IAF body APAC and the corrupt Graeme Drake. Drake won’t process complaints filed by Oxebridge, so there’s no point even sending one.
The IAF should be handling this, but clearly, Victor Gandy is out of his depth here. That, and he’s getting paid no matter what, so if IAF is just a massive cover for an international network of fake certificate mills, … well, so what?
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 30 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
