ACADEMIC CYBERCHASE: AN EXAMINATION OF FRAUDULENT SCHOLARLY PAPERS VIA TRANSNATIONAL DIGITAL MEDIA

American academic institutions of higher education have opened up learning modalities to a wide global audience. Today, students attend colleges and universities via a virtual connection from most nations in the free world. The value of an undergraduate, graduate and or professional formal college education taken in the United States remains in high regard. Nonetheless, the proficiency of student research ranges from excellent to questionable/fraudulent. Scholars remain concerned over the academic quality of distance learning enterprises. Discerning the authenticity of work submitted by students remains problematic. Ease of the Internet opens a vast Pandora’s Box of fraudulent services targeting students and academic institutions. Many of these offshore business enterprises offer questionable services to students around the world, many of which are no less than outright fraudulent and often plagiarized. Substantial extant data suggests these cybercriminals defraud academic institutions by providing a service of Material Support to facilitate widespread cheating and undermining the tenants of Social Justice. New tools available thorough the American Legal System, combined with new investigatory approaches, provide potent means of redressing this problem. A cross-discipline team of professionals (attorney, physician, FBI Investigator, theologian) propose a remedy.