📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
An entire academic life invented, from primary-school certificate to "doctorate in Northern Europe": the two-year investigation that ended when the applicant tried to register with Togo's Order of Doc
On 7 April 2026 the president of Togo's National Order of Doctors, Professor Beketi Katanga Anthony, held a press conference to explain why a man was in the civil prison in Lomé.
According to Togo Daily News, Icilome, 24heureinfo and Togo Breaking News, the man had applied to register with the Order as a doctor, submitting forged diplomas. The Order's checks found that his entire academic record was fictional, from a primary-school certificate up to a claimed doctorate in medicine, said to have been obtained at a university in northern Europe where no trace of his enrolment could be found. The investigation took nearly two years as inconsistencies accumulated and the identity was confirmed. He had been detained for about a month at the time of the announcement and was being prosecuted for use of forged documents and attempted illegal practice of medicine.
Two things make this case worth recording. The first is that it was stopped at registration, which is the stage at which the cases on this site are supposed to be stopped and so often are not; the Order wrote to the university instead of reading the diploma. The second is the two years. Verifying a foreign qualification with a European university from Lomé is slow, and the Order kept at it. An applicant who had been admitted provisionally in the meantime, as happens in some countries, would have practised for those two years.
Togo's own fake foreign degrees, those that Nigeria stopped recognising, appear in another case on this site. This one runs the other way: a forged European degree presented in West Africa.
For students, the lesson is one about time. Verification by a serious regulator can take years, and the degree you present has to survive it. A school that cannot be found by the regulator, or does not answer, will leave you in that two-year gap with no registration and no income. Choose one that answers.
Were you affected by this case, or something like it? Report it with your own evidence, or tell your story — first-person accounts are what stop the next family.
This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.