On May 28 1990 an electrical engineering student was caught red-handed cheating on his high-voltage exam at ML Sultan Technikon in Durban.
This incident cost him 12 months of his professional pursuits as he was barred from the institution.
But it also became a microcosm of his entire life.
He later falsely claimed to have received a master's degree from the same institution, but - once again - was caught out.
The student was Schabir Shaik, and now, 16 years later - as a 48-year-old father and married man - his name is synonymous with "cheating" on a far larger scale.
But Schabir's lifestyle was not always one of greed and corruption.
It was, instead, one of drive and passion - characteristics which morphed into something far less honourable when the context allowed.
His father, Lambie, was a self-made entrepreneur.
He used his business acumen to find a niche for his family within the racially divided milieu of apartheid South Africa, which set up endless economic, social and political constraints for families not white.
Inspired by their father's political fervour, the Shaik brothers became involved in the struggle to end apartheid.
They took in former ANC underground operative Ebrahim Ebrahim, but the police soon became suspicious and closed in on the Shaik family.
Schabir's three brothers - Mo, Chippy and Yunis - were all arrested and tortured by security forces working for the government.
Schabir managed to evade them.
At that time, he was working as an instrument technician and lecturer at the Peninsula Technikon.
He rushed home when he received the shocking news that his father had just had a heart attack.
In the meantime, Mo and Yunis began working as ANC intelligence operatives.
Chippy's anti-apartheid activism landed him in detention for a year, much of which was spent in solitary confinement.
It was through Mo that Schabir first met the future deputy president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, in the bustling city of London.
From then he began to operate as a conduit to transfer donors' funds from London to South Africa, where the money would be used to further the objectives of the ANC.
Thus began his friendship with Zuma and, with it, the roots of the massive controversy that was to follow.
In 1990 Zuma returned from exile in Mozambique. He was elected deputy chairperson of the ANC, and Schabir's assistance began in the form of interest-free loans.
In 1995, a year after the collapse of apartheid, Schabir established Nkobi Holdings - a move which brought some criticism as he used the name of the late ANC treasurer Thomas Nkobi without getting consent from the Nkobi family.
Later, brother Chippy was appointed chief of acquisitions of the government's arms procurement. A conflict of interest soon arose.
Nkobi Holdings had interests in Thomson-CSF as well as African Defence Systems, and although Chippy pointed out the conflict of interest to the arms-deal project control board in December 1998, he did not recuse himself.
Both companies were subsequently awarded contracts.
At the same time, Schabir's role as Zuma's "financial adviser" took on the various shades of corruption which have since been thrashed out in the trials and convictions, with Judge Hilary Squires once summing up Schabir's character as follows: "He was quite prepared to deceive to achieve his desired result."
Cheating on his exam all those years ago was certainly a sign of things to come.