A man has been jailed for three years after making more than £300,000 by doing coursework and examinations for other students.

Shahid Adnan, 43, of Lysander Close in the Everton area of Liverpool, would obtain the pass codes from students at Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) and complete coursework, assignments, and online examinations for them in return for payment.

The fraud came to light on 24 February 2023, when a student handed in a pen drive with coursework that he claimed was his to a senior manager in the computer forensics department at LJMU.

The manager did the customary checks to make sure that the work was that of the student. 

He inserted the USB stick into a computer and ran a digital forensics tool.

The report showed the pen drive had previously been used by Adnan and documents on it linked it to a company run by Adnan called “Study Sharp Ltd”.

The manager also found Excel Spreadsheets containing details of other LJMU students, their study modules, coursework due dates, and their personal login credentials to the LJMU network.

Further checks confirmed the manager’s suspicions that Adnan was accessing the network to fraudulently submit work and take examinations on behalf of other students.

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 admitted that he did sit an exam on behalf of the student who had handed in the pen drive. 

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

He 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.

He had three bank accounts and a trading account. Two cars, an Audi and a BMW. His home had expensive furnishings and white goods.

His 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. A further PayPal account contained £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 2 September at Bootle Magistrates’ Court, Adnan pleaded guilty to the first two counts but denied the third. 

On 7 October 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 on 17 June 2026 at Liverpool Crown Court.

A timetable has also been set for the Crown to recover the money Adnan made from his offending.

Senior Crown Prosecutor Andrew Madden of CPS Mersey Cheshire said: “Pulling together the evidence in this case to expose Shahid Adnan’s criminality has been a challenging process.

“He 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 and avoid having to pay it back.

“He is a fraudster who wanted more than his declared employment could give him, so he turned to crime and tried to outwit the authorities.

"The Crown Prosecution Service would like to thank Merseyside Police and Liverpool John Moore’s University for their help in bringing this prosecution.”