Verify Your CoC and CDC: DGMA's Crackdown on Fake Credentials

If you’ve heard that DGMA is cracking down on fake certificates and gotten a little nervous about your own paperwork, that’s a reasonable reaction — and a good one to act on. This isn’t about job-offer scams (we’ve covered those separately); it’s specifically about whether the certificates in your file are genuine, properly issued, and correctly recorded. Here’s what’s actually happening, and how to check your own documents.

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What DGMA has actually confirmed

In mid-2025, India’s maritime administration (then DG Shipping, since renamed DGMA under the Merchant Shipping Act 2025) issued a directive after investigations turned up a pattern of fraud: agents selling “packages” of forged training documents and Certificates of Competency, some claiming to be issued by foreign maritime administrations, others from training institutes that turned out not to be genuinely approved — in some cases not to exist at all in the form claimed.

The directive banned shipowners and licensed recruitment (RPSL) agencies from employing Indian seafarers holding CoCs issued by a list of specific unvetted foreign administrations. Port State Control inspections had already flagged Indian crew members on foreign-flagged vessels carrying suspect credentials, and DGMA reported that multiple fraudulent CoCs had been confiscated, with criminal complaints pursued against the agents involved and requests sent to relevant foreign authorities to cancel the fraudulent certificates at source.

A follow-up addendum to an earlier circular (Circular No. 31) set out a specific process for seafarers holding certificates from foreign administrations not on DGMA’s originally recognized list: submit scanned documents — CoC/CoP, STCW course certificates, sea service records, and a notarized affidavit — through your RPSL agency to a dedicated DGMA review email address, so a DGMA committee could assess authenticity. Genuine certificates were cleared to continue; fraudulent ones faced cancellation.

Separately, DGMA has also tightened entry requirements around Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC) issuance, closing off pathways that had been exploited by training institutes offering shortcut routes — part of a broader pattern of DGMA hardening its systems against fraudulent credentialing across the board, not just at the CoC level.

The consistent theme across this reporting: the fraud problem is real and has drawn a real regulatory response, but it centers on specific unvetted foreign administrations and specific fraudulent agents — not a suggestion that most Indian seafarers’ paperwork is suspect. Still, if you hold any certificate you’re even slightly unsure about, it’s worth five minutes to check.

How to verify your own certificates

DGMA operates a Seafarer Certificate Verification System — a set of free, online lookup tools hosted on dgma.gov.in that let anyone (you, a prospective employer, a port authority) check a certificate’s authenticity and status in real time. It covers:

1. Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC) — confirms your CDC number is genuine and currently valid.
2. Certificate of Competency (CoC) — confirms your officer qualification is on record and matches what’s printed on your physical certificate.
3. Certificate of Proficiency and Seafarer Passport — verifies proficiency credentials and identity documents.
4. Certificate of Endorsement (COE) — relevant if you hold a foreign CoC that’s been endorsed by India under STCW Regulation I/10.

Each certificate type has its own dedicated verification portal linked from DGMA’s site. The practical exercise is simple: pull up your certificate, enter its details into the matching verification tool, and confirm the details returned — your name, certificate number, grade, and issue/validity dates — match exactly what’s on the physical document in your hand. If something doesn’t match, or the system can’t find your certificate at all, that’s your signal to follow up rather than assume it’s a system glitch.

Red flags to check on your training certificates too

CoC fraud often starts upstream, at the training stage. Before you accept a training certificate as good — especially from a smaller or newer institute, or one you were steered toward by an agent — check for these red flags:

• The institute isn’t on DGMA’s published list of DG-approved Maritime Training Institutes (MTIs). This list is public; cross-check the institute’s name against it directly rather than trusting a certificate’s letterhead or a verbal assurance.
• No verifiable course approval number, or a number that doesn’t correspond to anything when you try to look it up.
• The certificate or institute can’t be found through an independent search — a legitimate DGMA-approved MTI will have a findable, consistent public presence, not just a certificate and a phone number.
• An agent bundles your certificate with a job offer, a foreign CoC, or “expedited” processing — especially at a price or turnaround time that seems too good, or with pressure to decide quickly. This is exactly the pattern DGMA’s investigations found: packages combining forged papers with placement promises.
• You’re asked to pay a training institute or agent for a certificate without actually attending meaningful classroom or practical training. A genuine STCW course involves real instruction hours; a certificate that shows up without you having done the work is not one you want your name on, regardless of who’s offering it.

If you discover a problem with your own paperwork

This can happen through no fault of your own — you trusted an institute or agent that turned out not to be legitimate, or a foreign CoC you obtained in good faith is on a list DGMA later flagged. If that happens:

1. Don’t try to quietly work around it. Continuing to sail on a certificate you now know or suspect is compromised puts your CDC, your sailing eligibility, and potentially your standing in the Indian National Database of Seafarers at serious risk if it surfaces later during a Port State Control inspection or routine audit.
2. Contact your MMD’s EAC (Examination, Assessment and Certification) section, or DGMA headquarters directly, and lay out exactly what happened — which institute or agent you dealt with, what you paid for, and what you were told. Bring your original documents and any payment records.
3. Cooperate with any verification process DGMA sets up — such as the document-submission process used in the Circular 31 addendum for foreign certificates — rather than avoiding it. Genuine certificates that go through review get cleared; the risk is much higher for people who don’t come forward and get caught later.
4. If your RPSL agency was the one that steered you toward the fraudulent institute or agent, say so clearly in your complaint. DGMA’s enforcement in this area has specifically targeted agencies and agents, not just individual seafarers, and a documented pattern from an agency is useful evidence for DGMA’s own investigation.
5. Keep everything in writing. Emails, receipts, WhatsApp messages with the agent or institute — all of it matters if this becomes a formal dispute over your certificate’s status.

The bottom line

DGMA’s tightening of certificate verification is aimed at fraudulent institutes and agents exploiting seafarers who are, in most cases, trying to do things the right way. The system now gives you a free, direct way to confirm your own paperwork is genuine rather than finding out the hard way during a PSC inspection or a job application. It costs nothing and takes a few minutes — there’s no good reason not to check.

FAQs

How do I check if my Certificate of Competency is genuine and properly recorded with DGMA? Use DGMA’s free online Seafarer Certificate Verification System at dgma.gov.in, which has dedicated lookup tools for CoC, CDC, Certificate of Proficiency/Seafarer Passport, and Certificate of Endorsement. Enter your certificate details and confirm the record matches what’s shown on your physical document.

What are red flags that a training institute’s certificate might not be DGMA-recognized? Red flags include: the institute isn’t listed on DGMA’s official list of DG-approved Maritime Training Institutes, the certificate doesn’t carry a verifiable course approval number, the institute can’t be found when you search for it independently, or an agent offers you a “package” bundling a certificate with a guaranteed job or foreign CoC at an unusually low cost or with unusual urgency.

What should I do if I discover an issue with my own paperwork that isn’t my fault? Don’t panic or try to quietly fix it yourself. Contact your MMD’s EAC (Examination, Assessment and Certification) section directly, keep all your original documents and receipts, and be transparent about how you obtained the certificate. If it was issued by a training institute or agent using DGMA’s name improperly, that’s DGMA’s fraud problem to investigate — not yours to hide.

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