U.S. university admission forgery: Indian student arrested for submitting fake records to return to India

Aryan Anand submitted fake documents to Lehigh University, leading to arrest, plea deal, and return to India.

A 19-year-old Indian student, who was arrested and charged with falsifying records to gain admission to a United States university, will have to return to India under a plea deal entered into with American authorities.

Aryan Anand had submitted fake documents to secure admission into Lehigh University, a private research university in Pennsylvania for the 2023-2024 academic year.

A report in the Lehigh University’s student newspaper The Brown and White, said last month that a police investigation had found that Anand had falsified admission and financial aid documents. “He had even “faked his father’s death certificate” as part of the conspiracy to obtain admission and scholarship,” it added.

Anand was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Jordan Knisley on June 12, with a bail of $25,000. He pleaded guilty to one count of forgery.

As part of the plea deal, he was sentenced to one to three months in Northampton County Prison, “which amounted to a time-served sentence,” reports said quoting Defence Attorney Molly Heidorn.

As part of the deal, Anand is required to return to India and Lehigh chose not to seek restitution of about $85,000. He was released to the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “According to a release issued by the office of Northampton County’s District Attorney Stephen Baratta, Anand had created a fake email address impersonating a school principal,” the report said. The release said Anand’s father is alive and is in India.

His forgery came to light after a post he shared on the social media site titled Reddit ‘I have built my life and career on lies' prompted the investigation into his case. In that anonymous post, he had laid out the details of his fraudulent scheme. The Brown and White report said the investigation began when a Reddit monitor notified Lehigh’s Admissions Department of the post on April 26.