KOCHI: The special investigation team on Saturday arrested three more persons in connection with the case in which seven UK-bound students were caught with forged degree certificates at Kochi International airport. Lijo George, 35, of Lourde House, Vijayapuram, Kottayam, Abdul Salam, 35, Kunnissery Veettil, Vallapuzha, Palakkad, and Mohammed Niyas, 27, Edathiparambil, Vaikom, were arrested for providing fake degree certificates to the students.
Lijo, who runs Drona Educational Consultancy at Nagampadam in Kottayam, collected Rs 30,000 to provide a fake Plus-II certificate of the UP Board to a student while Abdul Salam provided a fake BBA degree certificate to a Malappuram native after collecting Rs 40,000 from her. Salam runs UK Calling, an educational consulting firm in Perinthalmanna.
Mohammed Niyas, who runs Fly Abroad in Kochi, provided a fake BCom certificate of Bangalore University to a student for Rs 40,000. The police team recovered several documents, including the money transactions between the students, from their offices.
On Thursday, Nafsal, 38, of Kallungal Valappil at Thrithala in Palakkad, was arrested for providing fake degree certificates of Madurai Kamaraj University and plus-two certificates of Maharashtra State Board, Pune, after collecting Rs 90,000 each from two students, who were deboarded from a flight to the UK and later arrested.
According to the police, Nafsal worked in a hostel mess in London and acquainted with a Hyderabad native there. It is suspected that he obtained the fake certificates from the Hyderabad native. He provided fake certificates to those who wanted to join Master Degree courses at Kingston University, UK.