The Texas Board of Nursing in the United States has filed formal charges against 43 Nigerians for forging educational credentials.
The US authorities in a statement released a list of 75-person under investigation for fraudulently obtaining educational credentials.
The overall scheme involved the distribution of more than 7,600 fake nursing diplomas issued by three South Florida-based nursing schools: Siena College in Broward County, Fl; Palm Beach School of Nursing in Palm Beach County, Fl; Sacred Heart International Institute in Broward County.
The board said it had filed formal charges against the nurses for fraudulently obtaining educational credentials.
“The board has filed formal charges against the following nurses for fraudulently obtaining educational credentials. The board is authorised to file formal charges against a nurse if probable cause exists that the nurse has committed an act listed in Tex. Occ. Code §301.452(b) or that violates other laws. See Tex. Occ. Code §301.458. Further, formal charges are publicly available. See Tex. Occ. Code §301.466(b),” it said.
He added that the formal charges are not a final disciplinary action, and a nurse is permitted to work, as a nurse, while formal charges are pending.
The Texas Board of Nursing had previously charged the health workers at the District Court for the Southern District of Florida for allegedly participating in a wire fraud scheme that created an illegal licensing and employment shortcut for aspiring nurses.
A special agent in charge of the investigations, Omar Aybar, stated that the alleged selling and purchasing of nursing diplomas and transcripts is a crime that potentially endangers the health and safety of patients and insults the honourable profession of nursing.
