There are few no-go areas for imposters who falsify academic and career credentials to get well paid jobs.
Texas A&M University, one of the largest, richest and most prestigious universities in the United States has learned this lesson the hard way.
Recently it emerged that Alexander Kemos, the 'Associate Executive Vice President' for Texas A&M was not the 'warrior-scholar' he claimed to be.
He was paid $300,000 a year for a position that he obtained by presenting a resume that contained falsehoods about his academic qualifications and military service.
In February 2009 a search committee at Texas A&M accepted Kemos's credentials including his masters and doctorate degree from the respected Tufts University in Massachusetts and military service as a platoon leader in the US Navy's elite SEALs unit without verifying this background.
The search committee hired him in without verifying his academic qualifications as he was an administrative employee, not an academic.
It took more than a year from his appointment for questions about Kemos's background to reach the point where he was confronted and admitted the falsification of his service in the US Navy and that whilst he had attended Tufts, he had not completed either the Masters or Doctorate he claimed to have received.
The forced resignation of 'Dr' Kemos has brought adverse publicity to the administrators of Texas A&M from media across the United States.
This has damaged the standing of the University and provides a lesson to other institutions that may take a relaxed view about checking credentials.
This could have been easily avoided if elementary checks on Kemos's background had been undertaken at the time of his appointment.