Pardon me for bringing up something we’d rather not think about: Some nurses in Maryland paid for fake grades and received bogus diplomas from bogus nursing schools.

As I said, we’d rather not think about that.

This is the United States of America, the greatest country in the history of countries, and, while the current Republican presidential candidate can constantly lie and be inexplicably adored by millions, we will neither adore nor tolerate health care professionals lying about their credentials.

I mean, if you’re not a licensed nurse — or if you’re a nurse whose license was fraudulently obtained — get your hands off me!

Before I go on with this story, let me quickly add some important perspective: There are thousands of registered nurses in Maryland — more than 89,000 of them (thank you very much!), according to the Maryland Board of Nursing. There are also more than 10,000 licensed practical nurses, more than 13,000 advanced practice RNs, and more than 57,000 certified nursing assistants. While there is a shortage of nurses, and a concern that the shortfall will grow in the next decade, I raise the big number to pop any balloons of stress I might have caused with today’s opening: The chances you’ll be treated by a bogus nurse are minuscule.

Unfortunately, the bogus thing happened. It happened in Maryland and in several other states over the last six or seven years.

On the fortunate side, federal and state authorities have been doing something about it.

In fact, the Maryland Board of Nursing, in 2022 and 2023, suspended the licenses of more than 50 individuals, mostly women, who had “attended a fraudulent nursing education program.” And more nurses have had their licenses revoked since then — the updated number is not yet available — all of it the result of actions the board took in connection with a federal probe called Operation Nightingale.

That investigation started with a tip to the FBI’s Baltimore field office in 2019. Individuals working as nurses in several states were said to have purchased fake transcripts and diplomas from sham nursing schools. The nursing degrees allowed them to take the national exam required for licensure. And that allowed them to find jobs.

By January 2023, the investigation resulted in fraud charges against 25 people. The feds alleged that more than 7,600 fake nursing diplomas and transcripts had been distributed through the multiyear scheme. The bogus nursing schools, based in Florida, are now closed.

The indictments made a splash in the national news media for a day or so, but the consequences of the scheme appear to have sailed under the radar. I was alerted to it last month by a Maryland court case that suggested, even for my weary eyes, a level of criminality and recklessness seldom seen in the white-collar realm.

In that matter, a 55-year-old Prince George’s County man, who operated one of the suspicious nursing schools in Florida, pleaded guilty to selling fake transcripts and diplomas to “students” who never attended labs or classes and never completed required clinical training.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore, Ejike Asiegbunam, a resident of Upper Marlboro, made nearly $1.4 million from his diploma mill between 2018 and 2021. He achieved this level of income by charging each customer between $15,000 and $22,000, with an extra $5,000 to complete “online prerequisites.”

In addition, Asiegbunam conspired with a Florida woman, Johanah Napoleon, to sell fake degrees from the Palm Beach School of Nursing to several individuals in Maryland and New York.

According to federal prosecutors, when Asiegbunam recruited a student for the school, the student paid the school directly and the school kicked back 40% of the fee to Asiegbunam. In less than a year, he made $272,400 from the Palm Beach scheme.

For his guilty plea to this fraud, Asiegbunam has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman also ordered him to forfeit $1,662,732.

The forfeiture was a nice touch, but 21 months? That seems light for a scheme that, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “exposed patients in Maryland and elsewhere to potential harm and … consciously and recklessly exposed patients to the risk of death or serious bodily injury.”

(A 72-year-old woman who served as the registrar for the Palm Beach school received a six-year federal sentence last April in Florida. She sold nearly 4,000 bogus diplomas, according to prosecutors.)

As I said, this whole scheme — sending untrained, unqualified people into nursing for profit, putting the public at risk — takes white-collar corruption to a special level.

We could have done without the test, but our system of laws and government regulation prevailed in this case. The scheme was exposed. It was stopped. People went to prison. The Maryland Board of Nursing helped the FBI with its investigation.

“Since 2021, the board has been investigating and pursuing administrative disciplinary action against individuals suspected of obtaining fraudulent nursing degrees and credentials,” Rhonda Scott, the board’s executive director, wrote in an email.

The board’s website includes information about Operation Nightingale and lists 53 people with varying degrees of licensure who have been suspended from nursing. The last action appears to have taken place in August 2023, but Scott says the website will soon be updated with more disciplinary orders stemming from Operation Nightingale.