The Texas Board of Nursing has dragged at least 18 nurses from Nigeria to court over alleged certificate forgery.
The nurses, who are residents of Texas, the United States, were charged to court for obtaining educational credentials through fraudulent means.
NIGERIACRIME gathered that the Board filed formal charges against 23 nurses practicing in the US over certificates forgery, 18 of which are suspected to be Nigerians.
The Board, which said it caught all the suspects in a grand fraudulent diploma/transcript scheme as revealed by an ongoing investigations, published the identities of the accused nurses on its website.
The Nigerians involved are; Abiodun, Yetunde Felicia; Adelakun, Abiodun Aveez; Adelekan, Joseph Adewale; Adeoye, Vivien Temitope; Adewale, Modinat Abidemi; Afolabi, Olufemi Toun; Afolabi, Omowunmi F; Agbo, Odumegwu Steve; and Ajibade, Charlot Omotayo.
READ ALSO: Former CMD Adeyemi paraded for multiple killings
Others are; Akande, Olabisi Christiana; Akhigbe, Catherine; Akinrolabu, Folasade Margaret; Ako, Esiri Rachael; Akpan, Rosemary Moses; Alimi, Bukola A; Ani, Ndirika Justina; Aroh, Nchekwube C.; and Ayodeji, Sherifat Olubunmi.
According to the Board, the suspects engaged in the scheme procured fraudulent nursing credentials which they used to sit for the national nursing board exam.
In a separate statement, the Board said, “Upon successful completion of the board exam, the nursing applicants became eligible to obtain licensure in various states to work as an RN or a LPN/VN.”
Furthermore, the statement disclosed that “The Board has filed Formal Charges against the following nurses for fraudulently obtaining educational credentials.
“The Board is authorized 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 law. See Tex. Occ. Code §301.458. Further, Formal Charges are publicly available. See Tex. Occ. Code §301.466(b).
“Please note that Formal Charges are not a final disciplinary action, and a nurse is permitted to work, as a nurse, while Formal Charges are pending.”
The multi-state coordinated law enforcement action code-named ‘Operation Nightingale,’ involving the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), was inaugurated on January 25, 2023, to arrest individuals involved in a scheme to sell false and fraudulent nursing degree diplomas and transcripts.