ED busts 18,000-seat NRI medical college admission racket using fake documents

Dubai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has unearthed a massive admission racket in which thousands of students secured MBBS seats under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota using forged documents, according to reports by NDTV and The Times of India.

The investigation, assisted by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Indian embassies abroad, revealed that private medical colleges across states offered around 18,000 MBBS admissions on the strength of fraudulent NRI certificates, The Times of India said.

Many of these certificates, seized during ED raids, were later verified by India’s foreign missions and found to be fake. In several cases, even the notary stamps used were counterfeit, allegedly originating from the United States.

According to NDTV, the probe agency found that colleges paid agents to prepare these fake documents, which included forged embassy papers and fabricated family trees showing unrelated NRIs as “relatives” of aspiring medical students. Often, the same NRI sponsor’s documents were recycled for multiple candidates.

The ED also uncovered that some genuine NRIs willingly lent their names for a price. Agents allegedly paid them to pose as sponsors, even though they had no relation to the students.

Despite rules mandating that admission fees under the NRI quota be paid by NRI relatives, the investigation revealed that in most cases, fees were actually paid by the students’ families within India.

In West Bengal and Odisha, the agency found that state authorities failed to act despite the MEA providing “categorical” evidence of forgery in certain admissions, according to NDTV.

A senior ED official told The Times of India that several affidavits were notarised on dates when the supposed NRI sponsors were not even present in India, further proving the fraudulent nature of the racket.

Raids on private medical colleges have so far led to the seizure of fake NRI certificates, counterfeit stamps, and other incriminating evidence. The ED has attached assets worth over Rs187 million, including a fixed deposit of Rs64 million belonging to a West Bengal college, NDTV said.

The Times of India noted that promoters of these private medical colleges, along with a nationwide network of agents, orchestrated the scam, generating huge “proceeds of crime” by selling MBBS seats through fraudulent means.

In response to the findings, the Centre has tightened rules for NRI admissions.

The Director General of Health Services has issued fresh guidelines requiring every NRI certificate to be authenticated by Indian embassies before being accepted.

The MEA has also instructed missions abroad to conduct stricter due diligence, clearly defining which categories of relatives can legitimately sponsor candidates.

The ED’s investigation underscores how systemic loopholes, collusion between agents and institutions, and lax oversight allowed a racket of this scale to thrive — undermining both medical education standards and the policy’s stated objective of earning foreign exchange.