Reddit confession goes horribly wrong

Brut India

An Indian student in the US was deported after he did this…✍️

Transcript

00:00A 19-year-old Indian student pulled off a very structured fraud by his own admission

00:06and made his way to a US university.

00:09But then he indirectly exposed himself on Reddit.

00:12I have built my life and career on lies and fraud, read the title of the anonymous post

00:18that Aryan Anand made on Reddit.

00:20He detailed how he used fake documents, right from his marksheet to even his father's fake

00:26death certificate to find the place at the Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

00:31At the end of his post, he wrote,

00:33I don't know what I'm doing is wrong or right.

00:36It's basically wrong morally, I know.

00:38But I haven't had a single problem till now.

00:40But still, I'm scared something very bad would happen in my life very soon if I keep on doing

00:46these things.

00:47It turned out to be a prophecy that upturned his life.

00:51Aryan started his story from class 10.

00:53He said this all started when the 10th board exams were cancelled.

00:57He took science in class 11 with the hope that he would crack JEE or appear for competitive

01:02exams.

01:03But then he realized he wasn't interested in studying a lot.

01:07He detailed how he used to watch horror movies all night while his parents thought he was

01:12studying.

01:13He wrote that when he did try to study, he couldn't understand anything in physics and

01:17chemistry and only got a little bit of maths.

01:21Eventually, the idea of studying abroad reeled him in and he started to research how to apply

01:25for colleges and what to write, what documents to submit.

01:29In the process, he did not study for class 12 boards.

01:32It took him months to realize the very detailed plan that he had come up with to get admission

01:37in a foreign college.

01:38He was sure that he wanted admission only with full scholarship.

01:42He started with editing the mark sheets of classes 9 to 11 that he had on him.

01:47And then, to convince the college that he would be a good fit there, he got Chadjee

01:52BD to write a cover letter for him.

01:54He faced rejections at several colleges, but he also found acceptance in some colleges.

02:00But then they were not giving him full scholarship and he was looking for a college that would

02:04cover the cost of his stay and his tuition and his travel and everything.

02:09That's when Lehigh University came into the picture.

02:13They were offering him full scholarship except meals.

02:16He wrote that he could have afforded the cost for the meals for a year, but he did

02:20not want to take any money from his parents because he wanted freedom at all costs and

02:26he did not want them to pay for anything at his college.

02:29So, he decided to convince the college that he lost his father to cancer.

02:34He told the college that his mother was going to receive half the salary that his father

02:39used to get as pension.

02:41The college agreed to cover his meal costs as well.

02:44They now offered him a package which was covering his housing, tuition, meals, and

02:50even one round-trip ticket to India every year.

02:53So, he reached the U.S. in August 2023 without spending a single penny, he wrote.

02:59Aryan said he considered starting afresh and studying seriously for the exams that were

03:04held in college.

03:06But then he found that he was not interested again in studying, so he started cheating

03:10on his exams and getting a perfect score.

03:13But eventually, he realized he needed more pocket money to survive there, so he edited

03:18his transcript to make it look like he was a third-year marketing student and then he

03:22secured an internship for $1,500 a month.

03:27After spending a whole year there without getting caught, Anand posted all the details

03:32of his plan on Reddit and that post led to his deportation from the U.S.

03:37He posted on a subreddit called btechtards in February 2024.

03:42The moderator of this subreddit was a 19-year-old from Faridabad and he told The Indian Express

03:46that he felt it was the morally right thing to do to expose Anand's plans because he had

03:51been a JEE aspirant himself and he knew how tough it was for students to appear in competitive

03:56exams.

03:57While the moderator of the Reddit channel could not find out who the original poster

04:01was, he found out that Anand went to Lehigh University by taking a look at his page.

04:07He reached out to Lehigh University, telling them about Anand's post and then the university

04:13conducted its own investigation into the matter and confirmed that the student who had posted

04:18on Reddit was in fact Anand.

04:20This revelation spelled doom for Anand who was arrested on 30th April.

04:25He was charged with forgery, tampering with records or identification, theft by deception

04:30and theft of service.

04:32On 12th June, Anand pleaded guilty to one count of forgery.

04:37The university had only one condition that Anand would have to be deported to India and

04:42they would not charge him for the US$85,000 that they had lost on him.

04:47Had the university not decided to let him go on his deportation, Anand could have had

04:52to face a prison term of 20 years in the US.

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