Indian Student faked Father’s Death for US Scholarship

An Indian student was deported from the United States after he lied his way into obtaining a full scholarship to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

In an anonymous post that Aryan Anand made on Reddit, it was revealed he used fake documents to get a place at the university.

This included exam results and even a fake death certificate.

In the post titled I have built my life and career on lies and fraud – Long, Aryan explained:

“I soon realised I wouldn’t be able to get even a 50 percentile in JEE, so I started looking for colleges abroad.

“I edited my academic records perfectly, created a fake email ID for my school, and even bought a similar domain to make it look official.”

The Indian student used ChatGPT to create personal statements for applications.

“I got my results for 9-11 class and edited them in a very perfect way anyone would not recognise as if it’s edited… made a fake email ID of my school… bought a similar website domain of my school and got the email like if it’s of the principal then [email protected] so it looked exactly official.”

After being accepted from a top 25 US university with nearly the entire financial aid, Aryan’s new challenge was the remaining costs.

To avoid paying the remaining costs, the 19-year-old faked his father’s death certificate.

“I created a completely fake death certificate of my father… sent that to Lehigh college, saying my dad got cancer and is dead… instantly increased my aid package to cover the full cost of attendance.”

He also said he was “nervous about the student visa process, but he had no reason to be”.

On why Lehigh, he said there was “something unique about the uni and then said they also gave me a full ride, which means full scholarship”.

The visa officer saw his form and then approved his student visa.

But when Aryan arrived as a freshman last summer as a computer science major, he was “still unmotivated and cheated on his exams”.

Aryan’s lies were exposed by a Reddit moderator, who detailed how he verified and reported Aryan’s post.

To verify the post’s authenticity, the moderator cross-referenced Aryan’s Reddit activity and identified his connection to Lehigh University.

The moderator said: “I noticed that he was following Lehigh University and had posted a picture of an academic building there, which led me to believe he was a student at Lehigh.”

Screenshots of the Indian student’s post were then sent to Lehigh University’s admissions office, which led to a response from the Lehigh police department.

The moderator continued: “So that’s how I figured out that, this guy is from Lehigh and the way that I had mentioned everything in detail.

“It was very oddly specified and detailed. So the first thing I did was took the screenshots of the post he had made.”

“I took the screenshots and wrote a mail to admissions department of Lehigh University.

“And, I didn’t get a response from Lehigh directly but I got a mail from detective Lieutenant of the high police department directly after one month.”

Aryan was subsequently arrested and on June 12, 2024, he pleaded guilty to forgery.

His admission to Lehigh University was then cancelled.

As part of a deal, Aryan Anand agreed to return to India and Lehigh University agreed not to pursue restitution of $85,000.

The charges of theft and tampering with records were dropped as well.

He was then released to the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which deported him.