The audacity is just incredible

Since posing as a medical student more than a decade ago, alleged imposter doctor Yuvaraj Krishnan appears to have spun a web of lies spanning multiple continents. Hannah Martin and Blair Ensor investigate.

The ‘‘charming, funny’’, smooth-talking man who allegedly used fake documents to secure a job as a doctor at one of New Zealand’s busiest hospitals attended a medical school in Poland, but failed exams and never graduated, it can be revealed.

Yuvaraj Krishnan worked for about six months as a doctor in a clinical research position at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital until he was exposed as an imposter with no formal medical qualifications and sacked on August 10.

Krishnan examined dozens of patients during his time at the hospital. Police are investigating his actions, and ‘‘deeply sorry’’ health officials, are reviewing how he slipped through the vetting process.

Since breaking news of the alleged fraud on Thursday, Stuff has been investigating the 30-year-old’s background, which includes a trail of lies and deceit that spans several continents.

Yuava Raj Krishnan was born in Papakura, Auckland, in 1991 – later changing his first name to Yuvaraj. His mother and father, who are from Singapore and Malaysia respectively, own an automotive repair business in

Drury. He has two siblings, one of whom is an award-winning, qualified doctor with experience in clinical research.

In his late teens, Krishnan tried to forge his own path as a doctor. When he failed to get into the medical programme at the University of Auckland in 2011 – a fact he kept secret from family and friends – he posed as a student, and attended lectures, tutorials and labs.

Krishnan kept up the ruse for about two years, even dissecting corpses, before he was found out and trespassed from the campus.

An official university report obtained by Stuff shows Krishnan went to ‘‘considerable lengths to deceive’’ – hovering outside examination rooms and ‘‘quietly’’ slipping away as other students entered. He also ‘‘tailgated’’ legitimate medical students into restricted areas of the campus.

But that didn’t end his pursuit of a career in medicine.

After completing a three-year undergraduate bachelor of science degree at the University of Sydney, Krishnan moved to Poland, where he enrolled at Jagiellonian University School of Medicine in Krakow in August 2016.

Documents show he ran as a

class representative for the student government in his third year at the university, but did not graduate.

Krishnan told classmates he went to Jagiellonian because he wanted to practise medicine in the United States, and the Polish university had good match rates for residency programmes there.

‘‘From the beginning, he was the life of the party,’’ a classmate said, ‘‘but I also kept hearing about his grades, which were always top of the class.’’

However, beneath this veneer of success, it appears Krishnan was not achieving the grades he claimed.

A classmate told Stuff they accessed the school’s grading system, which showed he had failed ‘‘multiple’’ classes. His name is absent from a May 2020 list of those who graduated from the English school of medicine class of 2020, and he did not attend the graduation ceremony – held over Zoom due to the Covid-19 pandemic – citing travel to Warsaw to interview for a hospital job in either New Zealand or Australia.

‘‘This was so clearly a lie to me, it seemed he was running out of excuses,’’ the classmate said. Another peer said Krishnan did not complete the four-year degree due to ‘‘poor performance’’.

Sources also allege he altered documents while studying at Jagiellonian. The university has yet to respond to a series of questions from Stuff, including whether any concerns had been raised about the legitimacy of his work during his study.

In December 2020, Krishnan secured a non-clinical role in an Auckland Regional Public

‘‘When he talked about the medical field he seemed to know a hell of a lot. He’d spout a whole heap of lingo ... That’s what made us think he was qualified – we didn’t second guess it.’’ Auckland Regional Public Health Service source

Health Service (ARPHS) Covid19 contact tracing team based at Greenlane Clinical Centre.

Krishnan, who was known as Yuva, never mentioned his time in Poland to colleagues, an ARPHS source said. Instead, he said he’d spent time in the US, saying he studied at Boston University and worked as a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital before returning to New Zealand due to Covid-19. (Neither Boston University nor Massachusetts General Hospital has any record of Krishnan on its books.)

A Hinge dating app profile set up with Krishnan’s name and photos also stated he studied at Harvard University in Massachusetts. Harvard has no record of him ever attending.

The source said Krishnan told ARPHS colleagues he was working in the contact tracing team while he waited for registration to practise as a doctor in New Zealand to be finalised.

They said he seemed like a nice guy, ‘‘super sweet’’ and very generous – often offering to buy coffee or lunch for people.

‘‘When he talked about the medical field he seemed to know a hell of a lot. He’d spout a whole heap of lingo . . . like how you’d expect your GP to talk to you about any sort of medical procedure or condition. That’s what made us think he was qualified – we didn’t second guess it.’’

Krishnan even gave a talk to staff about what the Covid-19 situation was like in the US from a clinical perspective, the source said. ‘‘He talked about how he was doing lots of really important stuff, like clinical research.’’

An ARPHS spokesperson confirmed Krishnan ‘‘shared his previous work experience’’ as part of a regular team meeting in January last year, and it was ‘‘not unusual’’ for members of the ARPHS Covid teams to ‘‘share insights from their current or previous roles’’ at these meetings.

When the Covid-19 team disbanded in February, the ARPHS source said they’d heard Krishnan had secured a job at Middlemore Hospital as a clinical researcher, under the guise of being a doctor, on an annual salary of about $150,000. They assumed that his doctor’s registration had finally come through. A simple search of the Medical Council of New Zealand register of doctors, which any member of the public can do, reveals that wasn’t the case.

Looking back now, the source said Krishnan never really talked about his schooling or training in any great detail. ‘‘We never thought to ask, because why would you?’’

A second ARPHS staffer, who worked with Krishnan in the Covid-19 response unit, said he was ‘‘very, very charismatic’’ and ‘‘so convincing’’.

‘‘He was so confident and selfassured. And a really good contact tracer. Man, he could talk a good talk.’’

Krishnan was a fast learner and picked up what was taught to him. But, with the benefit of hindsight, the staffer said they always felt there was something ‘‘just a bit off about him’’.

The staffer, who has been a health professional for many years, thought it shocking that someone ‘‘would go to the lengths’’ Krishnan allegedly had.

They thought some of the reference checking may have been ‘‘a bit light’’, given the pressure on the system as the pandemic was gathering steam, and felt his role at ARPHS would have added ‘‘credibility to the whole farce’’ when he went to get a job at Middlemore.

Health practitioners work so hard for their training, this ‘‘makes a mockery of something almost sacrosanct’’. ‘‘The audacity is just incredible.’’

In securing the clinical research job at Middlemore, Krishnan was employed ‘‘on the basis of documentation which was not authentic’’, Te Whatu Ora Counties Manukau said last week.

The health board had reviewed the care of each patient Krishnan was involved with, including treatment plans and medicines dispensing, and concluded there had been ‘‘no compromise’’ to any patient’s care, chief medical officer Andrew Connolly said.

It was undertaking a ‘‘full investigation’’ into its employment vetting processes.

But it’s not just health officials Krishnan allegedly deceived. In August 2021, he appeared in the High Court at Auckland, where he fought for a discharge without conviction on charges of operating a vehicle carelessly and failing to stop or ascertain injury.

The charges stemmed from a crash near the St Lukes Rd off-ramp of the Northwestern Motorway in October 2020.

Krishnan argued that, if he was convicted, it could affect his eligibility to practise medicine in New Zealand and train in the US. At the time, he was working in the contact tracing unit at Greenlane.

He supplied several letters in support of his application for a discharge. One was supposedly from the Medical Council, saying he’d passed his exams and was eligible to apply for full registration to practise as a doctor in New Zealand.

Another – apparently from

James Worthy, a clinic manager – said that, if convicted, Krishnan could no longer work in the Public Health Unit, the Covid-19 Unit or the infections unit, and ‘‘we will have to strongly consider a termination of his contract’’.

A third, said to be from Dr Tomasz Rogula, a professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University of Ohio, said Krishnan was a potential candidate for further training in infectious diseases research in 2022, but his application would be rejected if he was convicted.

Justice Christian Whata ruled Krishnan should be discharged without conviction because there was evidence ‘‘the black mark of conviction remains significant’’.

The possible consequences of a conviction would ‘‘be an utterly disproportionate outcome given the minor offending in this case and complete absence of ongoing risk presented by Mr Krishnan to the public’’, the judge said.

The Medical Council said last week it did not provide the letter Krishnan relied on in court, and it was ‘‘working with the police to provide clarification around the extent to which [he] may have used documentation purporting to have come from the council’’.

Te Whatu Ora Te Toka Tumai Auckland (formerly Auckland DHB) chief medical officer Margaret Wilsher said there was no record of anyone called James Worthy working there.

Dr Rogula, a professor of surgery at Jagiellonian University, gave a somewhat cryptic response when asked to confirm the legitimacy of the letter with his name on it.

‘‘The answer to your question is in the court’s note you sent. It specifically says that this document was ‘produced’ by Mr Krishnan. I confirm that court’s statement.’’

He did not respond to a request to clarify that comment.

Since news of his alleged Middlemore Hospital deception surfaced last week, Krishnan has kept a low profile.

When approached at an apartment building in Penrose on Thursday, he told a reporter his name was Steve Singh and claimed not to know Krishnan, before driving away in an Audi registered to Krishnan. That vehicle was parked at his parents’ home in Papakura on Monday.

When contacted by Stuff that same day, Krishnan’s father, Krishnan Kuppen, handed the phone to lawyer Steve Cullen, who was meeting the family and said he would likely be acting for Yuvaraj Krishnan.

‘‘At the moment, given there seems to be a criminal investigation pending, it would be prudent to hold tight [on commenting] and see what the outcome is,’’ Cullen said. ‘‘They [the family] don’t want to get involved – it’s catastrophic for all involved at the moment – so we’re just waiting to see how the matter will progress and where we go next.’’

Yesterday, Cullen confirmed Krishnan had yet to be interviewed by police.

Police have declined to comment, other than to say their investigation is ongoing.