Former student charged with falsifying documents to gain admission

A Lehigh police investigation revealed the crimes of a former international student from India who authored a Reddit post about falsifying admission and financial aid documents to attend Lehigh for the 2023-2024 school year.

In addition to fabricated documents, Aryan Anand, 19, faked his father’s death as part of his conspiracy to obtain admission and a scholarship to the university, according to a news release from Stephen G. Baratta, the Northampton County District Attorney.

Background

A Reddit Inc. monitor notified Lehigh’s Admissions Department of a post titled “I have built my life and career on LIES and FRAUD.” 

The criminal complaint revealed the thread was authored by someone with the username “u/transportationOK4728,” and “the creator was following only one University group on Reddit and that University was Lehigh University.”

Lehigh University Police Department Sargeant Kyle Fisher said admissions realized only one student could’ve been behind the original Reddit post because it included information about the author’s country of origin, financial awards he had received, his family’s fiscal situation and his father’s death. 

“Although a name was never mentioned, it was pretty easy to compare applications and figure out who (the post) belonged to,” Fisher said. 

On Feb. 26, after the university identified Anand, the criminal investigation began. 

Investigation

Fisher, who began overseeing the investigation when LUPD Detective Lieutenant Dave Kokinda left for paternity leave on April 1, said white-collar crimes like these take a while to investigate because there are a large number of documents to go through and it is difficult to secure evidence that will stand up in court. 

In the since-deleted Reddit post, Anand outlined his scheme in great detail. 

He indicated he created a fake email address in the format of “[email protected]” for his application, submitted a death certificate for his father to acquire additional financial aid, falsified tax documentation, altered his secondary school year 1-3 transcripts and created a false “Senior School Certificate Examination” to show success in his final year of secondary school. 

Anand wrote it was “all for the purpose of securing admission and financial aid to attend a university in the United States.”

Fisher said Anand listed the email address, “[email protected]” as the point of contact between Lehigh and his school. 

“We were able to determine that the email address was created right around the time that he submitted his application, which is suspicious,” Fisher said. 

The tax document referred to in the Reddit post listed Anand’s father’s income and was presumed to have been altered to make it seem as though he made less than he actually did. Anand’s high school transcripts were also presumed to have been altered to give him a higher chance of obtaining admission. 

Fisher said he couldn’t discuss investigative techniques in great detail, but anytime an electronic document is altered, metadata is left behind. 

Comparing it to DNA left at a crime scene, Fisher said metadata captures things such as location, dates and times, which showed alterations were made to the documents after they were originally produced. 

Metadata revealed the death certificate and tax documents were altered using the “iLovePDF” website, and the academic documents were modified using Adobe Photoshop, according to the criminal complaint.

“All of this was extremely suspicious to us, and this is what we utilized to obtain a search warrant for Anand’s dorm room in order to attempt to find the original documents,” Fisher said.

Lehigh police worked with numerous offices on campus — including the Dean of Students Office, the Office of Residence Life, and the General Counsel Office — to obtain the search warrant. Fisher said acquiring one is a rare occurrence, it’s not taken lightly, and it’s only done for legitimate reasons. 

“We were lucky enough to have been able to find the original transcripts,” Fisher said. “We could actually prove that the transcripts that he submitted to Lehigh University were not the same transcripts that he had received (and) not the same grades that he had actually received in high school.”

Fisher said finding this one piece of hard evidence was enough to move forward with an arrest. 

Legal Proceedings

On April 30, a criminal complaint filed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania accused Anand of violating the following statutes: forgery, tampering with records or identification, theft by deception and theft of services. 

Anand was arrested that day and charged with four felonies: a second-degree felony for forgery, a second-degree felony for tampering with records or identification, a third-degree felony for theft by deception and a third-degree felony for thrift of services. 

During one interview with Lehigh police, according to the criminal complaint, Anand admitted to falsifying his grade 11 transcripts, using a fake email address to impersonate a school principal and writing the original Reddit post. He also confessed his father is still alive, and he created a fake death certificate for him. 

The news release confirms that Anand’s father is currently alive and is living in India. 

Though each of his charges holds a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, Fisher said the maximum sentence would have been an unlikely outcome for a first-time offender, and Lehigh senior leadership decided a quick resolution would be best for the university.

Anand waived his right to trial on May 12 and entered a negotiated guilty plea deal to one count of forgery — graded as a second-degree felony in Pennsylvania.

On the condition that Anand return to India and with the approval of the District Attorney’s office, Lehigh chose not to seek restitution — which would have amounted to about $85,000, according to the news release. 

Fisher said the decision not to seek restitution stemmed from the low likelihood the university would ever recoup the money, and that if they did, it would likely be Anand’s family paying for his crimes. 

The university’s priority, Fisher said, was to ensure Anand would not be able to do this to another United States institution. 

Anand was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Jordan A. Knisley on June 12, with a bail of $25,000. 

Recent Updates

Anand was released to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and remains in custody today. 

Fisher said he believes it’s unlikely Anand will be able to appeal the revocation of his student visa, should he attempt to do so. 

The charge, coupled with the fact he no longer has a visa, would make a future return to the United States nearly impossible for Anand. 

“(Fraud) with this dollar amount fits into the category of an aggravated battery,” Fisher said. “That’s one of the most serious categories of crime that ICE considers when letting people into the country.”