Investigation
NYC Invalidates 2,000 Construction Safety Cards Tied to Alleged Training Fraud
Provider allegedly sold city-issued and OSHA credentials to workers who had not completed required course
New York City Site Safety Training cards can be scanned at construction sites to verify workers have completed required safety courses.
New York City is moving to invalidate about 2,000 active construction worker safety credentials after prosecutors alleged an approved training company sold cards to workers who had not completed required courses.
RedCode Inc., owner Lutfur Rahman and employee Mohammed Tushar were arraigned Sept. 8 in Brooklyn Supreme Court on a 12-count indictment stemming from an undercover investigation by the city Dept. of Investigation. Prosecutors allege Rahman and Tushar agreed to provide Site Safety Training and OSHA cards for $500 each without requiring undercover investigators posing as construction workers to complete the courses.
RedCode operated from this Brooklyn office before New York City stopped the company from issuing new safety-training credentials in November 2025.
Image courtesy Google Maps
Investigators visited RedCode locations in Brooklyn and Queens between April 22 and July 16, 2025, and allegedly signed attendance sheets for classes they did not attend. RedCode then allegedly submitted records indicating the required training had been completed, resulting in issuance of the credentials, prosecutors said.
The city Dept. of Buildings independently found a similar irregularity during a July 26, 2025 audit at RedCode's 146-04 Hillside Ave. location in Queens. Auditors arrived for a scheduled two-hour Drug and Alcohol Awareness course, then a required part of the city's 40-hour SST program, but the class did not take place. The following month, DOB confirmed RedCode nevertheless had issued a completion certificate for the course, the department told ENR.
DOB denied RedCode's application to renew its status as an approved training provider in November 2025 based on findings that required training had not been provided, DOB Press Secretary Andrew Rudansky told ENR in an email. The company has not been authorized to issue new cards or certificates since then. RedCode had been approved since April 2021 and issued about 2,000 SST cards tied to more than 7,000 certificates.
“Additional investigation was needed before the Department could determine this was a [recurring] issue,” Rudansky said. DOB continued working with Brooklyn prosecutors as they built the criminal case and, following the indictment, moved to revoke RedCode's previously issued cards and certificates.
New York City requires at least 40 hours of approved safety training for workers at larger and more complex construction sites.
Image courtesy NYC Dept. of Buildings
Workers holding RedCode-issued cards, or cards from other providers that relied on RedCode certificates, have 90 days to complete required training and obtain replacement credentials. Their SST cards will continue to scan as active at jobsites during the grace period, although RedCode-issued certificates are being invalidated.
New York City requires workers at larger and more complex construction sites to complete at least 40 hours of safety training. DOB says more than 450,000 workers have received SST cards representing more than 18 million hours of training.
ENR has previously reported other investigations involving fraudulent or allegedly fraudulent safety credentials. In 2023, DOB invalidated about 6,000 cards issued by EHS Academy after an audit raised questions about whether required training occurred. Brooklyn prosecutors separately charged Odessa Safety and another provider after undercover investigators allegedly obtained credentials without attending classes.
A larger case followed in 2024. Manhattan prosecutors alleged Valor Security & Investigations falsely certified about 20,000 workers between 2019 and 2023, when it became the city's third-largest safety certifier. The case included Ivan Frias, who fell to his death from a construction site in 2022 after Valor allegedly certified him for training it had never provided.
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DOB subsequently disabled about 17,000 active Valor-issued SST cards and required affected workers to obtain legitimate training. When ENR asked whether the RedCode case prompted additional safeguards after the earlier cases, DOB did not identify new measures, instead citing its provider-audit program and work with prosecutors.
The RedCode defendants were released without bail and are due back in court Nov. 4. An indictment is an accusation, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Bryan Gottlieb is the online editor at Engineering News-Record (ENR).
Gottlieb is a five-time Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism award winner with more than a decade of experience covering business, construction and community issues, including finance, law and real estate. He has reported for Adweek and the San Diego Daily Transcript and led a community newsroom in Santa Monica, Calif. He served as editor-in-chief of the Detroit Metro Times and as managing editor at Roofing Contractor, where he helped shape national industry coverage. At Engineering News-Record, Gottlieb covers breaking news, large-scale infrastructure and megaprojects, regulatory developments and business trends across the U.S. and global construction sectors.
email: gottliebb@enr.com | office: (248) 786-1591