Police have booked 12 people without detention for allegedly using forged degrees or college transcripts to get a job or a marital partner.

According to North Chungcheong Provincial Police, the suspects contacted a forger via online advertisements and requested counterfeit documents to seek employment, apply for loans or deceive their partners.

An unnamed suspect, 36, requested the forger to make a counterfeit college transcript and other documents in February 2017. The suspect reportedly submitted the forged documents to a company and got hired.

Another anonymous suspect, 35, requested the same forger to fabricate a business administration degree from a renowned university. The man, who turned out to be a high school graduate, showed the copy of his degree to his wife’s family before getting married.

The forged documents were intricate enough to make it difficult to detect that they were fake, police said. The suspects paid 300,000 won ($278.55) to 500,000 won for each document.

The police have secured a warrant and are seeking to arrest the forger, who is currently in China.

By Cho Yun-myung (yunc39@heraldcorp.com)