New Delhi: A 19-year-old Indian student, Aryan Anand, has been forced to return to his home country under the terms of the agreement after pleading guilty to charges of falsifying records to secure admission to Lehigh University in a case of academic dishonesty.
Anand’s elaborate scheme, which involved manipulating documents to secure his place at the prestigious Pennsylvania institution for the 2023-2024 academic year, unravelled thanks to a Reddit post he authored himself. Under the username “u/transportationOK4728,” Anand boasted of his deceitful methods, including faking his father’s death certificate to secure additional financial aid.
This confession caught the attention of a Reddit monitor, who alerted Lehigh University authorities on April 26. The university police investigation quickly confirmed Anand as the author of the post and exposed the extent of his forgery. While Anand’s elaborate scheme initially secured him a place at Lehigh, his confession on Reddit ultimately exposed his lies and led to his expulsion from the university.
The investigation revealed that Anand had created a fake email address impersonating a school principal and altered several documents using software like Adobe Photoshop and iLovePDF. These fraudulent documents included a death certificate for his father, tax records, and academic transcripts.
Facing charges of forgery, Anand was arraigned in June and ultimately pleaded guilty, resulting in a one to three-month sentence at Northampton County Prison, which he has already served. As part of a plea deal, Anand was required to return to India, and Lehigh University chose not to pursue restitution of the estimated USD 85,000 in tuition and fees he received.