An Amazon Driver with a Phd Secretly Sat Online University Exams for 124 Students, Charging £250 a Pop, and Police Found £2.46 Million in His Accounts

His name was Shahid Adnan, 43, a Liverpool Amazon Flex driver who ran a side business called Study Sharp Ltd. One pen drive ended it.

In February 2023, a computer forensics student at Liverpool John Moores University handed coursework in on a USB. Dr. Tom Berry, a lecturer in the school of computer science and mathematics, noticed stray folders on the drive that didn’t belong to the student who submitted it.

Inside were Excel spreadsheets with other students’ names, modules, coursework deadlines, exam dates, payment amounts, and university login credentials. Berry passed it to Merseyside Police’s cyber crime unit, along with an IP address that had been used to submit multiple students’ work.

A mugshot released by Merseyside Police shows the bearded man at the center of the exam fraud investigation. Credit: Merseyside Police.

Police say Adnan used those credentials to complete assignments and sit online exams as the students themselves, helping as many as 124 people at universities around the world. He charged from £250 for a single exam up to £14,000 for full coursework packages.

When officers searched his home, they found bundles of cash, an Audi, a BMW, and roughly £2.46 million spread across his Barclays, Lloyds, and PayPal accounts. Prosecutors put the direct earnings from the cheating at more than £300,000.

Amazon delivery vans travel in convoy along a UK motorway — the type of day job the fraud suspect held while allegedly completing university coursework for more than 100 paying students. Credit: AK Film Production / Adobe Stock.

Senior Crown Prosecutor Andrew Madden said Adnan “created complex audit trails with his bank accounts to try and avoid detection and lived a lavish lifestyle to use up the money he made.” Adnan claimed he wasn’t aware he needed the universities’ permission to log in.

He pleaded guilty to fraud, a hacking offence, and money laundering, and was sentenced to three years in prison. Detective Sergeant Adam Dagnall called it the rarest case he had ever investigated.

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