What we know about the Bay Area residents implicated in the college cheating scandal

This scheme worked in two different ways. In the first version of the scheme, Cooperating Witness 1 — a founder of The Key and KWF, the institutions charged with facilitating the aforementioned wire fraud — worked to "bribe college entrance exam administrators to facilitate cheating on college entrance exams."

In the second version of the scheme, CW-1 bribed "varsity coaches and administrators at elite universities to designate certain applicants as recruited athletes or as other favored candidates." The parents of applicants and CW-1 worked together to create fake profiles for their kids, either embellishing their athletic accomplishments or, in many cases, outright inventing them.