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.

Published on: Jun 28, 2024, 11:18:45 IST

By Sanya Jain

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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.

Aryan Anand got a full ride to Lehigh University by falsifying documents. (Facebook/lehighu)

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 His admission to Lehigh has been revoked.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')

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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