In February 2014, the domain UNNJ.edu became the latest educational domain registration in the .edu TLD, allocated to the University of Northern New Jersey.
University president, Dr. Steven Brunetti, Ph.D., welcomed prospective students via the university’s web site:
“We at the University of Northern New Jersey continue to inspire our students to pursue their career goals and beyond so that they will become the leaders of tomorrow.”
Except, there is no such accredited institution.
The domain UNNJ.edu was registered as part of a sting operation by the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit in particular:
“UNNJ is a school operated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Newark. It was created as a part of an enforcement action that targeted SEVP-certified schools and officials who sought to fraudulently utilize SEVP and the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) to commit various violations of federal law.”
According to the Associated Press, UNNJ.edu was used to arrest 21 people on charges they conspired to help more than 1,000 foreigners fraudulently keep or obtain student or work visas over the past 2½ years.
The defendants whose arrests were announced Tuesday knew the school was bogus, as did the foreigners, who pretended to be students there in order to stay in the US. Most of the foreigners who benefited from the scam were from China and India.
There are a few unanswered questions, such as whether Educause, the dot .edu Registry, authorized or was aware of the domain’s registration in 2014.
Beyond the setup of the domain and web site at UNNJ.edu for the purposes of the sting operation, it’s fascinating seeing the extensive construction of assorted social media profiles.
On LinkedIn, there are at least 42 “alumni” of the University of Northern New Jersey. Many have graduation dates predating 2012, the date that UNNJ.edu was allegedly founded!
We noted at least two bogus LinkedIn profiles, most likely set up by the Department of Homeland Security to provide credibility to its “University” operation:
The photo used in the “Deepak Singh” profile belongs to Sanjay Jha, former executive of Motorola, who is obviously unrelated to the person’s credentials, at a company called DataXpander. We can assume that DataXpander is a bogus corporation set up to support this media profile associated with the UNNJ.edu sting operation.
The photo used in the “Sarah Kian” profile is that of Dr. Martha Nessler, chiropractor, who is from New Zealand; we’re not sure how she’d react to the use of her photo for the creation of a bogus LinkedIn profile.
For more information on the UNNJ.edu sting operation click here.
