Indian student faked father’s death for full scholarship to US. A Reddit post gave him away
“I have built my life and career on lies,” Aryan Anand wrote in a Reddit post that led to his deportation from the US.
An Indian student who faked his father’s death to get a full scholarship to an elite US university will be deported from the country. Aryan Anand, 19, has been charged with fabricating admission and financial aid documents to attend Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, according to Lehigh Valley News.
An anonymous Reddit confession by Anand led to the unravelling of his web of lies.
“Built my life on lies”
According to ABC News, Anand forged transcripts, financial statements and even his father’s death certificate to get a full ride to Lehigh. He confessed all of this in a Reddit post titled: “I have built my life and career on lies.”
In his post, the 19-year-old explained how his entire application was made up so he could get into an American college. “I haven’t told anyone how I got to the point where I am right now. It would destroy everything I have,” he wrote before explaining, at length, how he scammed the system.
Besides falsifying documents and his father’s death certificate, Anand also created a fake email address to pose as his school principal.
Although he did not name himself or the university, a Reddit moderator noticed his post, did some digging and figured out that Anand was a student at Lehigh.
“The defendant only had one other university that he followed, which was Lehigh University. So, the moderator actually reached out to Lehigh to give them a heads up,” said Northampton County Assistant DA Michael Weinert.
The moderator alerted the university and passed on all the evidence he had.
Anand was arrested two months ago and pleaded guilty to forgery on June 12, 2024. His admission to Lehigh has been revoked.
Although he could have been sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison for his crime, the 19-year-old will only face expulsion and deportation back to India, thanks to a plea deal with the university.
(Also read: Indian origin student on rejection from Stanford University: 'I'm going to change the world')
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