Police in Hengshui, North China's Hebei Province have busted a case in which more than 300 suspects were involved in cheating on the 2016 National Higher Education Exams for self-taught adults.
This is the largest case of exam fraud in the city since cheating in national exams became a criminal offense in 2015, China National Radio reported Sunday.
Hengshui police received a tip-off that ghost writers were using fake documents to sit the exams on the behalf of others on October 29, 2016, the day of the exams, and soon after arrested one such ghost writer, surnamed Li.
Based on information provided by Li, the officers discovered a truck near the exam site carrying 15 students and a large number of real and fake exam entrance permits.
More than 20 suspects from the "cheating gang" were arrested later. Police eventually found that about 170 students and over 100 ghost writers were involved.
According to Hengshui police officer Sun Huanlun, the ringleaders, Liu and Cheng, ran a training agency together.
Cheng was in charge of finding customers online, according to the china.cnr report.
"Students would pay about half of the fee as a down payment, somewhere between 2,000 yuan ($428.6) to 3,000 yuan. If they passed the exam, the other half will be collected; if not, they can get a full refund," said Cheng.
The pair also gathered over 100 ghost writers, promising to pay them up to 500 yuan each, said the report.
The gang also forged the exam permits that would allow the ghost writers to successfully impersonate the students, Sun explained.
The main suspects are in custody. No charges have been pressed as of press time.
Those who cheat in national exams can face to up to seven years in prison, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
