The Metropolitan Police Crime Division (MPCD) on Wednesday made public five individuals, including three engineers, who were arrested on charge of producing and possessing fake engineering degrees.

The arrestees are Ankit Khadka, 29, a computer designer; Suvit Khadka, 44, who was identified as a broker, Hitesh Singh, 28; Pujul Kumar Khatri, 26; and Sanat Shrestha, 26.

Singh, Khatri and Shrestha are “engineers” with fake degrees.

According to the MPCD, Ankit and Suvit are part of a racket that “produces and sells” fake engineering degrees. They own a designing firm in Gabahal, Lalitpur, from where they run the illegal business, said police.

According to police, Ankit “designed” fake certificates while Suvit would help the so-called engineers get registered with the Nepal Engineering Council. Singh, Khatri and Shrestha were the clients of the same designing firm from where they had acquired their engineering degrees.

According to their certificates, Singh, Khatri and Shrestha did their engineering from Nepal Engineering College in Duwakot in 2014.

It is not that the arrested “engineers” did not go to any engineering college.

In their statements to police, the trio said they did go to Nepal Engineering College but had failed in the final exams despite repeated attempts. Hence, they “took a shortcut” and obtained fake degrees. Police investigation shows that all the three “engineers” were unemployed.

According to Superintendent of Police Sahakul Thapa, spokesperson for the MPCD, Ankit and Suvit told investigating officials that they had produced fake engineering certificates for four individuals.

“They would collect holograms from old certificates and use them to produce fake ones,” said SP Thapa.

The fake engineer episode comes hot on the heels of a police operation in which the law enforcement agency had arrested doctors possessing fake academic degrees.

In February, the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police had arrested 17 doctors who had acquired fake certificates to acquire MBBS degrees.