The ruse was oddly simple.

Since college coaches can often recommend more athletes to the admissions department than a team needs, why not buy a few slots from the coaches and sell them to parents desperate to get their children into the most selective universities?

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about William Singer’s scheme was how easily he could have been found out. With a handful of keystrokes, or maybe a phone call, admissions officers could have discovered that applicants were simply posing as athletes.

Then it might have been discovered that a purported pole-vaulter had probably never touched a pole, that a long snapper had stopped playing football, that a supposedly fast swimmer wasn’t fast at all. Indeed, the doctored photographs used to support claims of athletic ability are pretty unconvincing.

Yet as simple as it would have been to uncover the plot, the scheme lasted at least seven years, according to the federal indictment detailing the fraud led by Singer.