US: Indian student deported back to his country for submitting false documents for admission in university

A 19-year-old Indian student, who was arrested for allegedly fudging records to get admission into a US university, will have to return to India under an agreement reached with US authorities.

Aryan Anand had submitted fake and false documents to gain admission to Lehigh University, a private research university in Pennsylvania, for the 2023-2024 academic year. A report in Lehigh University’s student newspaper ‘The Brown and White’ last month said that a police investigation had found that Anand had falsified admission and financial aid documents. It said he had also “falsely claimed the death of his father” as part of a conspiracy to gain admission and scholarships.

Anand was arraigned on June 12 by Magisterial District Judge Jordan Nissley on a $25,000 bail. He pleaded guilty to one count of forgery. As part of the plea agreement, he was sentenced to one to three months in the Northampton County Jail, “which is the equivalent of a time-served sentence,” lehighvalleylive.com reported, citing defense attorney Molly Heidorn.

Under the deal, Anand would have to return to India and Lehigh decided not to seek the $85,000 in restitution. He was released into the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to a release issued by Northampton County District Attorney Stephen Baratta’s office, Anand had created a fake email address by impersonating a school principal, reports lehighvalleylive.com. The release said Anand’s father is alive and in India.

Anand’s fraud came to light after he shared a post titled ‘I have built my life and career on lies’ on the social media site Reddit, sparking an investigation into his case. In that anonymous post, he had detailed his fraud scheme. The investigation began when a Reddit monitor notified Lehigh’s admissions department about the post on April 26, Brown & White’s report said.

“The criminal complaint revealed that the thread was written by someone with the username ‘u/transportationOK4728,’ and that ‘its creator was following only one university group on Reddit and that university was Lehigh University,'” the report said.

Further investigation by Lehigh police identified Anand as the author of the post, which was later deleted but in which he outlined his scheme. Anand indicated he created a fake email address in the format of principal@schoolname.com for his application, submitted a death certificate for his father to receive additional hardship financial assistance, falsified tax documentation, altered his secondary school Year 1-3 transcript and created a false “Senior School Certificate Examination” to show success in his final year of secondary school,” the report said.

Anand said all of this was done “for the purpose of obtaining admission and financial aid at a university in the United States.” The criminal complaint filed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on April 30 accused Anand of violating the statute of forgery, tampering with records or identification, theft by deception, and theft of services.

According to the criminal complaint, “metadata revealed that death certificates and tax documents were altered using the “iLovePDF” website, and academic documents were modified using Adobe Photoshop.” Anand was arrested and charged with second-degree felonies for forgery and tampering with records or identification, third-degree felonies for theft by deception, and third-degree felonies for embezzlement of services, the report said.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)