NC security firm filed false training records for its guards, state says
On paper, dozens of security guards at a North Carolina firm completed a state-mandated training course last year. Their certificates for the remote class were signed and uploaded to the state’s registration application website.
The only problem, state officials allege, was that some of them never attended the class.
Some of the 35 certificates issued for the class were falsified and used for official registration applications by employees using the company owner’s state licensing login credentials, according to an investigation into AJ Security Squared Inc. obtained by The News & Observer.
The North Carolina Private Protective Services Board, which oversees the licensing of private security guards across the state, was already looking into the company last year when it received a tip about the alleged fraudulent documents from Richard Roop-lal, a former employee of the firm.
Roop-lal contacted the agency after he was fired for allegedly uploading some of the falsified certificates.
He told state officials many guards didn’t show up for the class — and that he wasn’t the only one who knew documents were tampered with.
Short classes, falsified certificates
A protective services trainer hired by AJ Security Squared Inc. was scheduled to teach a two-day remote unarmed guard training course last June. That got truncated to one day at the firm’s request because “everyone only needed a review of the class,” the trainer told state investigators.
But when regulators presented her with a list of certificates issued between April and September last year that showed her as the trainer, she “identified several guards she never taught the class to, along with certificates that were not signed in her handwriting,” according to the investigation.
She admitted to holding the training class for only one day but submitted both days on the signed certificate, “thus knowing she was falsifying them,” state regulators wrote in their investigation.
A separate investigation into the trainer is ongoing, NCDPS Private Protective Services Director Paul Sherwin confirmed to The N&O.
Investigators learned the trainer and another employee signed the certificates and gave them to the people on the training roster who did not attend. One of those people was Roop-lal, the employee who tipped off state officials.
After reviewing the certificates, the employee said Roop-lal had signed some of the training documents himself, including his own. “Thus, the evidence suggests Roop-lal falsified” documents as well, state regulators allege.
Those falsified certificates were uploaded to the state’s registration platform, according to the employee who told state investigators he witnessed the trainer log in using the company owner’s credentials.
State investors interviewed Scott Lowell, the firm’s owner, who said he had allowed employees to use his login credentials to file the paperwork.
“He explained he works in Florida and travels often and depends on others to enter the applications on his behalf,” investigators wrote in their report.
Lowell told state investigators he no longer gives his login credentials out to employees for the purposes of submitting applications. The company is in the process of having the guards retake the training course to satisfy state registration requirements.
Changes to training rules?
The Private Protective Services Board’s Law and Rules Committee had voiced concerns over remote training options, according to meeting minutes from the group’s March 19 meeting.
It was directly spurred by the results of the investigation into Lowell’s business. The committee agreed that it may need to review the board’s administrative rules around class size and attendance reporting.
In-person training classes are capped at 35 students, Sherwin confirmed to The N&O.
“Currently, there is no class size limit for synchronous online courses,” Sherwin said in an email. “But the Board is amending its administrative rules to set a limit of 35 students.”
97 unregistered security guards
Lowell’s AJ Security Squared Inc. has locations in North Carolina, Illinois, New York and Florida, according to its website. The company offers guards for security and “asset protection” services.
State officials had identified Roop-lal in an initial audit into the company last year, according to the investigation.
The May investigation into the company’s Charlotte office last year “identified ninety-seven (97) guards who had been working security without being registered” as required by state law.
The violation landed the company in a consent agreement costing $11,873 for the unregistered guards and another $204 for “operating without an in-state qualifying agent for 12 months,” according to the investigation.
As for the falsified credentials, the board handed down a “formal Letter of Reprimand” to Lowell.
Any violation of the state’s statute governing security guard licenses can be charged as a Class 1 misdemeanor, Sherwin wrote in a statement.
“Criminal charges are rare, but they do happen,” Sherwin wrote. “Most commonly, law enforcement will charge unlicensed armed security guards.”
He added that “persons or companies may also be charged criminally if they knowingly hire an unlicensed armed security guard.”
This story was originally published June 4, 2026 at 7:59 AM with the headline "NC security firm filed false training records for its guards, state says."
