Four Ghanaian students in US accused of forging transcripts

Four former Lehigh University students from Ghana are accused of forging their high school transcripts to obtain a combined US$590,000 worth of financial aid, according to the university police department, writes Rudy Miller for lehighvalleylive.com.

A friend of the four former students said they earned good grades and made a positive impact on the Lehigh community. She’s organising an online fund raiser for their legal fees and urges others to reserve judgement until the four can defend themselves through the legal process.

Police said in court records they uncovered the forgery of Henry Dabuo after first reviewing his brother’s transcript. Dabuo’s brother was accepted at Lehigh and planned to enrol this fall, court records say. Dabuo’s brother is 25 years old, older than the typical freshman at Lehigh, according to court records. His age led the admissions office to take a hard look at his transcript, which uncovered “concerning format, markings and spelling errors”. Lehigh rescinded his admission, and then noticed the same sorts of formatting, markings and errors on Henry Dabuo’s high school transcript, according to court records. Dabuo’s brother mentioned in his application that he knew three other Lehigh students from Ghana. With the help of the US State Department, Lehigh tracked down the high school transcripts for those three students and found similar concerns, court records say.
Full report on the lehighvalleylive.com site