Death Sentence for Steve

[ham]

A slick operation would have had no connection to US citizens other than as paid consultants. Incorporation, all board members, all records, and the server should have been outside the US.

It seems they were bringing Liberians on board but it wasn't soon enough. Also the records were their ultimate downfall. Credit cards could have cleared in the Cayman Islands to keep the finances out of Liberia.

And one last thing. Don't tick off the tax man.

exactly

Toward the latter I see a logical thought process at work. E.g., can't get accredited in the US, how about overseas? Bear says a school recognized by a foreign MoE is GAAP, what country will recognize us? Curriculum development is expensive and time-consuming, but RA schools use PLA. That's a legit concept, so let's try that...

So far, so good. I think that is why a lot of us have trouble with how all this went down. These really aren't classic millists. They followed a more-or-less legit theoretical model. (PLA is a joke but RA schools do it, Liberia is a joke but what third world country isn't?) I can see this as having been conceived, not in sin, but rather as a logical extension of the legit online trade school.

I'll have to disagree here.
For ages mills have tried to give consistence to their 'accreditation' while tooting the horn of freedom in academia. Most won't go beyond setting up some fake domain posing as accreditor.
Dodgy schools in for the short run won't care; those in for the long-run will HAVE TO care.
Warnborough has tried many 'takes' on the matter and seems still to be seeking an answer.
I saw around the same time mills boasting 'accreditation' from Malaysia, Pakistan, Comoros, etc, so the whole 'exotic' option might have been mainstream.
Reminds me of the low-cost 'latin american passport program' scam: some 'friendly' small-time bureaucrat was located, who'd supply with blank passports, sold for an hefty fee -yet far below the usual price for a regular program- to the sucker.
When push came to shove, the passports were found out to be officially 'stolen' or 'missing' papers...
Accreditation may or may not be the way to go, but the third world isn't exactly the right place to go seek credibility.
Third world isn't chosen because of some mysterious academic secret, but because with a few thousands you get the balls rolling there, while in the west you need to be University of Phoenix to do that (=billionaire operation).