One of the details that strike me is that the cheater comes from a fairly wealthy background and has no need for that prize money at all. They have much more to lose than gain and this doesn’t seem rational at all.
It's for university admissions. It's not that surprising. There's a lot of fraud in admissions. I've met students who have given TED talks on subjects they have no idea about, written science books with fake reviews on Amazon, etc. all for admissions.
There are a lot of firms specializing in designing bullshit extracurricular activities for rich snobs. As long as you’re willing to pay it’s not hard to have UN photo ops, TED talks like you said, philanthropy in Africa, etc. under your belt, all low risk activities that are usually good enough for Ivy League. It’s interesting this guy chose to fake one of the few things people might actually bother to scrutinize. He’s probably looking further than college, though.