Indian student fakes father’s death to get US scholarship, arrested

An Indian student was arrested and deported after it was discovered he had forged documents to obtain a full scholarship. Aryan Anand, a student at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, boasted that he built “his life and career on lies” in a now-deleted Reddit post that was later flagged by a moderator of the platform.

Anand made a stunning confession of how he used fraudulent means to secure admission to a US college on a full scholarship.

This included falsifying transcripts, essays and even the death certificate of his living father.

Anand was arrested two months ago and faced up to 20 years in prison for forgery and theft of services, 6ABC reported. However, at the request of university authorities, he was expelled and deported to India.

Lehigh University said in a statement: “We appreciate the report and the thorough investigation that brought this matter to light.”

Michael Weinert, an assistant district attorney for Northampton County, explained how a Reddit moderator connected Anand to Lehigh University. “The defendant only had one other university that he followed, which was Lehigh University. So the moderator contacted Lehigh to give them a heads up,” Mr. Weinert said, according to 6ABC.

Mr. Weinert praised Lehigh University’s thorough investigation, saying, “Verifying the facts was difficult, but Lehigh and its police did an excellent job of thoroughly investigating the case and uncovering the truth.