Two Queens men and their company are facing a 12-count felony indictment after the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office says they sold fake construction safety credentials for $500 apiece, no training attended. Lutfur Rahman, 34, of Jamaica, and Mohammed Tushar, 34, of Howard Beach, along with their company Redcode Inc., were arraigned September 8 before Justice Danny Chun and released without bail. Their next court date is November 4.

The charges: three counts of first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, three counts of second-degree receiving reward for official misconduct, and six counts of second-degree falsifying business records. As with any indictment, these are accusations, not findings of guilt — the DA's own release states plainly that "an indictment is merely an accusation and not proof of a defendant's guilt."

The cards at the center of the case are the ones every construction worker in this city is supposed to carry: Site Safety Training cards required under Local Law 196, and OSHA 10 and 30-hour cards — the credentials that prove a worker actually sat through the hours of training the law requires before setting foot on certain job sites. According to the DA's office, Redcode — operating out of 529 McDonald Avenue in Brooklyn and 146-04 Hillside Avenue in Queens — sold the real-looking cards for $500 each with no class ever taught. Buyers signed attendance sheets for training that never happened, and Redcode reported those false completions up to the agencies that track them.

The scheme surfaced through an undercover buy operation run by the Department of Investigation's inspector general for the School Construction Authority between April and July 2025 — meaning it was cards destined for school construction sites, among others, that first drew scrutiny. "Proper safety training is a foundational safeguard for everyone on a construction site," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in announcing the charges.

The immediate fallout: the Department of Buildings has invalidated every Site Safety Training card Redcode ever issued. If your crew — or a sub's crew — holds a card from this company, it no longer counts, and DOB inspectors checking credentials on site won't recognize it. Any contractor who has worked with Redcode should confirm which of their workers' cards came through the company and get them re-trained through a legitimate provider before the next inspection catches it.

This is the kind of fraud that puts the wrong incentive in the room: a real safety card is supposed to mean a worker knows how to spot a hazard before it becomes an incident. A fake one means nobody checked at all, and the worker standing next to that hazard has no idea what to look for. The DA's office has not said how many cards Redcode issued in total.