Can you qualify for student loans after committing welfare fraud?

Long story short, someone I know was taking advantage of social assistance (lying about their address). After seeing them not put effort towards getting a job and carelessly spending their money for over a year, I decided to confront them. Their solution was to change from their current fake address to a new fake address… After a lot of debating, I decided to cut them off and make a call to report their fraudulent behaviour. I did it anonymously, but I suppose they can put the pieces together pretty easily. Last week, they decided to apply to college. I was happy to see them take a step to improve themselves, although I still felt they needed to take responsibility for taking advantage of the system; so I was content with my decision to report. I recently got a very angry message from their mom, saying that they lost all progress in their life thanks to me… it felt like it came out of nowhere, so I’m wondering what are the repercussions for committing this kind of fraud? Were they unable to qualify for college or student loans? Did I really wreck their life?