Well it looks like a gCaptain forum member was a year ahead of the media, general public & uscg on calling out fraud at a REC. In his thread a fellow member wanted some evidence or link about the allegation & there’s finally one available.
Wow, I’m shocked they actually named names of the mariners. Nice.
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The tests aren’t that hard. You’d have to be pretty lazy and really stupid to pay to obtain an illegal license.
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You have not been in the GOM recently have you?
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Interesting a majority of the people listed in the DOJ docket work or worked at ECO. Just saying, the good ol boy system is alive and well.
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Doesn’t demonstrate logical thinking abilities & dedication to the profession for sure. Even for those like myself who found some parts hard at first there’s always the repetition route & all the practice tests & retests that you want.
BTW, I think Smith’s & Johnson’s Link’d In profiles still say they’re employed by the CG.
In caps size.
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I wonder if there are mugshots somewhere too?
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If you download the pdf on that page on the table on page 14 it says that one of the people with a fake licence was using it from 2016 until the 17th of September 2020, seems like people were only caught very recently.
Takes a while to investigate, and then prove it. Sounds like they’ve been on this case for quite some time.
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Ooh, you did the deep dive. See we do have investigate reporting at gCaptain.
The following defendants are charged with receiving, possessing, and intending to unlawfully use mariner licenses, to which they were not lawfully entitled: JONATHAN ABBEY, RAFAEL ATKINS, ANTHONY BROWN, JAMES CARR, CHARLES FRANKS, JERRY FUDGE, DAVID GALVAN, JUSTIN GANDY, ANTHONY GARCES, CARDELL HUGHES, HARRY JOHNSON, EDWARD JONES, ALEXIA LOVETT, BRANDON MACK, HUGO MARQUEZ, MILES MARTS, DEVERICK MORROW, FREDRICK NETTLES, STINSON PAYNE, OCTAVIAN RICHARDS, QUANG TRAN, ANTWAINE TRAVIS, SHUNMANIQUE WILLIS, and ROBERT WINTERS.
What kind of name is Shunmanique??? I’ve never heard it before.
I found a few of them on linkdin. Names match and industry matches. I saw ECO, Hornbeck, Jackson, and SIU represented. IF it’s actually the same people named in the press release.
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Not from me. I’m just curious about human behavior & the audacity of functioning idiots & criminals. I wanted to see pictures of them. That & probably too much time on my hands.
Dang. Coconut telegraph reported this one correctly years ago…still amazes me to see it.
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There are many more involved in this scheme that still need to be caught up with. Next thing on their list of investigations needs to be fraudulent sea time letters from these companies.
The USCG Investigative Service is pretty good at ferreting out hanky panky in the CG. They are kinda like what NCIS is to the Navy but with a little different organizational structure. They’ll push an investigation until told to stop. They do their investigation and then it’s up to DOJ. USCGIS can sure mess up a career
As I recall, 30 or 40 years ago some USCG officers and staff in New Orleans were convicted for selling licenses, or seeing to it that unqualified people got licenses.
It’s certainly no secret that unqualified people have been somehow getting licenses for a longtime.
Everyone knows that a lot of companies, especially down in the Bayou, have been handing out false sea time letters for a long time.
As I recall, around 30 years ago, some Arctic Alaska fishing company staff were convicted of issuing fake seatime letters.
There needs to be a real time automated reporting system cross checked against payroll records for sea time.
I think a big part of the reason that the RECs were created, and later the NMC, was to try to prevent false and/or overly generous sea time evaluations in New Orleans, exam cheating and scoring assistance free m USCG personnel, etc.
It’s obvious that some of the OSV companies and their employees have been engaging in license fraud for a long time.
More recently, many of the schools are engaging in exam fraud, some schools are overly generous with coaching during exams, and in exam scoring. People who obviously should not pass, too often manage to pass on a second attempt a few minutes later.
I like when you go in on Monday morning, and right after they check everybody in they hand you your certificate to make sure your name is spelled right…
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I’ve been doing lots of classes (10+) over the last 2 yrs at two different well known schools. I’ve never had a cert presented to me the first day for any reason. Thats messed up.