Four Ghanaian students have been arrested in the United States for allegedly forging high school transcripts to gain admission to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
Court records from Northampton County have identified the suspects as Otis Opoku, Evans Oppong, Cyrilstan Nomobon Sowah-Nai and Henry Dabuo.
They have been charged with forgery and theft of services.
The Ghanaian students were arrested when the Lehigh University Police Department (LUPD) filed three separate criminal complaints against them on September 6.
This came after the LUPD received a forgery/fraud report on August 23 from the Lehigh Vice Provost of Admissions and Financial Aid, Dan Werner.
Mr Werner had raised concerns about the legitimacy of a transcript submitted by Jude Dabuo, Henry Dabuo’s older brother, who had been admitted to the university for the upcoming semester.
Unusual markings, formatting, and spelling errors on the document led the Admissions Office to rescind Jude Dabuo’s admission and prompted them to investigate his younger brother’s credentials.
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Further enquiries revealed similar discrepancies in the applications of the other three students, who stated in their applications that they were classmates.
According to the prosecutors, the students allegedly submitted transcripts to the Lehigh Admissions Office that reported higher grades than their original high school transcripts.
They added that Opoku has been a student at Lehigh since 2022 and received a financial aid package worth $212,933.30.
Sowah-Nai has also been a student at the university since 2023 and was awarded $127,213.70 in financial aid.
Dabuo has also attended Lehigh since 2023 with a financial aid package worth $129,244, the university’s The Brown and White newspaper reported.
The four students are currently in the custody of the Northampton County Corrections Department and awaiting preliminary hearings scheduled for September 24, 2024.
Meanwhile, their friends and family have created a GoFundMe page to solicit funds for their legal bills.