RIYADH: An American university has accused a young Saudi student of stealing “property” and blank transcript papers from the university’s registrar office, before sending the documents to the Kingdom’s Cultural Mission in Washington for ratification.

According to a Fox News 13 broadcast report, a recently retired employee at South Florida University’s registrars office, Anthony Embry, said a Saudi student was accused of stealing blank transcript papers, as well as a hard drive containing information about registered students.

Embry’s affidavit reveals he found out about the crime when he was contracted by the Kingdom’s Cultural Mission in Washington regarding the ratification of these transcripts last June, which turned out to be forged documents.

The details of the incident go back to June 27 when the young Saudi was seen on surveillance cameras breaking into the registrar’s office at the university at 2  a.m. and stealing a hard drive, in addition to a number of blank transcript papers.

The American TV channel’s report indicated that the university security office requested from the public, via a post on its official website on July 15, to help identify the person seen in the theft.

The stolen information includes important data such as students’ information, scientific degrees and certificates.

The Saudi Consul General in Washington, Dr. Mohammed Al-Issa, confirmed to a local newspaper that “the attaché deals with more than 120,000 scholarship students and does not endorse or ratify any certificates or transcripts before first referring to the universities that issued these documents for authentication.”

He promised to provide further information about this case and communicate with South Florida University regarding these charges.

The university has not yet identified the accused student.