by “Do you feel like you can’t move forward with your Final degree project (GFT)? Is your delivery deadline approaching and you’re really behind? Send us a message today, our research and writing services can work for you. you”. This is the message (including misspelling) that advertises a website that sells to university students original, genuine works not plagiarized. The price: about 30 euros per page. A 60-page TFG, for example, can cost around €1,800. The offer not only includes TFG but also master’s final projects. Also scientific articles and even doctoral theses. Just do a simple search on the internet to find dozens of these types of platforms, who have been acting with total impunity on campus for years.
“The university should not allow this brutal fraud. “We are very worried,” she is indignant. Daniel Arias, professor of Business Organization at the University of Granada, who has contacted one of these websites posing as an interested student. At the official level, however, the university has no record of this type of beach bars. And that, with the penal code in hand, we are facing a possible crime of falsification of official document.
The professor from Granada explains that the university is quite protected against plagiarism that students may commit thanks to the Turnitin system, which even identifies works that contain texts generated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. “There is no protection, however, against an original writing that is not copied but rather someone has researched and written for you in exchange for a sum of money. A small thesis can have 100 pages, so we are talking about 3,000 euros,” adds Arias, who has been talking about this problem for some time with several colleagues from his faculty. Everyone is alarmed.
difficult to detect
Anna Tarragó, former TFG coordinator at a Catalan university, acknowledges that when she held the position, this type of fraud was not detected. “Now they are looking at other things, like the use of ChatGPT. But how can we detect if someone has paid for the services of a professional? “If these companies do the work following the regulations, with a correct citation, and a rigorous search, we can only detect that it is a good job. The problem is ethical, since the conflict is the responsibility of the person who hires someone else to do their job,” concludes Tarragó.
Universities have tools to detect AI and plagiarism, but not works done by third parties.
The professor from Granada, however, believes that It is not an ethical problem but a complete fraud. “If someone pays for another person to write their doctoral thesis and thanks to that thesis this person gets a public job at the university, aren’t we facing an illegality?” asks Arias, who recalls that professors who direct theses they don’t charge
“Students who use these platforms to obtain their TFG or their doctoral thesis could incur a crime of falsifying an official document”
Possible crime
Indeed, Daniel Salvador, criminal lawyer at the Vosseler firmstates that students who use these platforms to obtain their TFG or doctoral thesis could incur a crime of falsifying an official documentwhich carries the penalty of prison of six months to three years and fine of six to twelve months. Meanwhile, the website that provides the thesis would receive the same penalty since it could be considered “necessary cooperator”.
“If the university wants to investigate thoroughly, it should ask the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate”
The criminal lawyer remembers that paid activities such as those of ‘black writers’ (those people who write a book for another) No incur in any crime. In the case of students who use these platforms, however, it is because the final degree project or doctoral thesis is a Essential requirement to obtain a degree, which is an official document.. “We are not just talking about buying a work that has been written by someone else whom you have paid. With this job you get an official title, whether it is your thesis or your graduate degree. Therein lies the problem because that is an official document,” she points out.
The lawyer, however, considers it very difficult to prove fraud. “If the university wants to investigate thoroughly, it should ask the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate. If there is any body that can detect it, it is the Prosecutor’s Office,” explains the criminal lawyer.
Disable title
Outside of the criminal sphere, at the administrative level, the university does have possibilities to act, according to Salvador. Especially in degrees such as Law or Engineering, whose degrees qualify you to develop that profession. “If it is proven that you have obtained your degree thanks to the purchase of your final degree project, it could be declared null and, therefore, lose the training. That is, you would be unable to work. The problem, in any case, is the same as at the criminal level: obtaining evidence and proving fraud,” he concludes.
Questions about this type of internship, the Department of Research and University refers to the Catalan Consumer Agency, which assures that it has no record of them. “We have not received any queries or complaints about these companies,” explain sources from the institution, who insist that this is an activity that is almost impossible to detect. They assure the same in the secretariat of the faculty of Philology of the University of Barcelonawhere there are no recorded incidents of this type of fraud, unlike what happens with some cases of plagiarism related to AI.
