Fraudster jailed after raking in £300k by sitting students’ exams and completing their coursework

A fraudster has been jailed after he pocketed £300k by sitting exams for students and completing coursework for them.

Shahid Adnan of Lysander Close, Everton, pleaded guilty and was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court today.

The 43-year-old was caught after a Computer Forensics student handed in a USB drive containing suspicious coursework to Dr Tom Berry from Liverpool John Moores University in February 2023.

Dr Berry from LJMU’s School of Computer Science and Mathematics, found that the previous owner of the pen drive had inadvertently copied a host of files onto this pen drive, including student usernames, passwords, coursework submission dates, and financial information.

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The evidence was then passed on to Merseyside Police who launched an investigation.

Detectives found Adnan was able to log into student accounts and complete assessments for them, with evidence found of payments to him from students, and of Adnan living a lifestyle well beyond his declared wealth.

Adnan had a company called Study Sharp Ltd, which received payments from LJMU students, from students at other UK universities, according to Merseyside Police detectives.

He eventually admitted to officers he sat an exam on behalf of the student who handed in the USB drive to Dr Berry.

The investigation was passed to Merseyside Police’s Cyber Dependant Crime Unit, and a search warrant was obtained for Adnan’s home address where he was arrested.

He said he had logged into the LJMU account using the student’s personal details and was paid £250 for the service.

Adnan said he was "not aware" of requiring authority from the university to log into the account.

The police began enquiring into Adnan’s assets and found he was living a lifestyle well beyond his means as a tutor and an Amazon Flex delivery driver, his known occupations.

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Adnan's Barclays Bank account contained £1,505,156, his Lloyds Bank personal account stood at £600,590 and there was £245,279 in his Lloyds Bank business account, with a further PayPal account containing £110,214.

Further investigations led police to believe Adnan may have been doing work for 124 students at universities all over the world.

Adnan was charged with counts of fraud by false representation, causing a computer to perform a function to secure or enable unauthorised access to a programme date, and money laundering.

On September 2 at Bootle Magistrates’ Court, Adnan pleaded guilty to the first two counts but denied the third,

On October 7, 2025 at Liverpool Crown Court, he admitted the third offence of converting criminal property, otherwise known as money laundering.

He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment at Liverpool Crown Court, with a timetable has also been set for the Crown to recover the money Adnan made from his offending.

A spokesman for LJMU said: "We are pleased that the diligence of our staff and the safeguards we have in place identified this serious issue committed against a number of universities and supported the investigation by Merseyside Police.

"The university promotes and supports a culture of academic integrity and takes all forms of academic dishonesty very seriously. We expect all students to conduct themselves appropriately and in accordance with the ethical values of an academic community. We continually review the safeguards we have in place to ensure the academic integrity of our assessment processes."

Detective Sergeant Adam Dagnall from Merseyside Police, who led the investigation, said: "Adnan will serve a significant prison sentence and his operation has been dismantled.

"We hope this serves as a strong deterrent to those who would look to commit large-scale fraud, and those students who think they can cheat their way to an undeserved future.

"Proceedings will now commence to recover Adnan's assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

"We always look to ensure that those who commit fraud are not allowed to see the benefit, and that ill-gotten gains are put back into our communities."

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