Records from Northampton County suggests four Ghanaian students studying in Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, USA have been arrested for supposedly forging their high school transcripts to gain admission into the aforementioned university.
The said students, Otis Opoku, Evans Oppong, Cyrilstan Nomobon Sowah-Nai, and Henry Dabuo—are presently being held in Northampton County Jail on charges of forgery and theft of services.
Prosecutors claim the students presented forged high school transcripts to Lehigh University’s Admissions Office, inflating their grades to secure their places at the school. According to court documents, Opoku, a student since 2022, received financial aid totalling $212,933, while Sowah-Nai and Dabuo, who both started in 2023, were awarded financial aid worth $127,213 and $129,244, respectively.
According to the university’s student newspaper reports the arrests were made after Lehigh University Police Department (LUPD) Detective Lieutenant David Kokinda filed criminal complaints against three of the students on September 6. The complaint against the fourth student, Evans Oppong, is still being processed.
The investigation began when Lehigh’s Vice Provost of Admissions and Financial Aid, Dan Warner, smelled foul play and raised concerns about the legitimacy of a transcript submitted by Jude Dabuo, Henry Dabuo’s older brother, who had gained admission 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 investigate his younger brother’s credentials. Further inquiries revealed similar discrepancies in the applications of the other three students.
The four students are currently being held on $100,000 bail. As of Monday, no legal representation has been assigned to their case, with a GoFundMe page being launched to raise funds for their legal support.
