25 Arrested in Fake Nursing School Diploma Scheme That Gave Degrees to Thousands

Investigators said that about 2,400 of the 7,600 students who obtained a fake degree eventually passed their licensing exams — mainly in New York. Nurses certified in New York are allowed to practice in Florida and many other states.

The selling and purchasing of nursing diplomas and transcripts to “willing but unqualified individuals" is a crime that “potentially endangers the health and safety of patients and insults the honorable profession of nursing,” said Special Agent in Charge Omar Pérez Aybar. Pérez said investigators have not found, however, that any of the nurses caused harm to patients.

"The most important thing for us was to make sure, to the extent we’re talking about healthcare, is that we stop the bleeding," Lapointe said."What do we learn when somebody gets injured? Stop the bleeding. The bleeding here is to stop those schools from being able to put more fraudulent diplomas out in the public sphere."

The defendants were charged with conspiring to and committing wire fraud, prosecutors said. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison. Many of those people may lose their certification but likely won't be criminally charged, federal officials said. The FBI and Health and Human Services Inspector General worked jointly on the investigation, dubbed"Operation Nightingale, in honor of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.

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