The Directorate General of Shipping has uncovered a racket involving forged certificates of competency (CoCs), essential documents required for seafaring jobs.

The Kanjurmarg police initiated action after officials confirmed that several CoCs had been fraudulently created and uploaded into the official system.

The forgery first came to notice when officials found that a candidate, Mishal Anand, had a CoC booklet number uploaded in the database even though he had not appeared for the examination.

When they checked further, they found that the entry was uploaded using login details from the Kolkata examination centre.

DG Shipping’s technical and nautical teams then carried out an audit of the system. They found that two login IDs had been used to upload dozens of fake records.

The inquiry revealed 46 fake entries in the engineering department and 56 fake entries in the nautical department.

Following this, DG Shipping traced the employment histories of the candidates linked to the suspicious entries and collected 24 CoC copies from different shipping companies.

Of these, three booklets were confirmed as forged, while the remaining certificates were suspected to be backed by manipulated digital records rather than genuine examination results.

Officials said the accused candidates had allegedly obtained fake CoCs, documents required for roles such as chief engineer, second engineer and electro-technical officer, and used them to secure jobs without taking the mandatory exams.

The investigation is continuing as authorities work to identify everyone involved in creating and using the forged certificates.

Reference: TOI