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Police arrest 22 over entrance-exam scandal

Police made raids in connection with the university entrance examination cheating scandal yesterday, arresting 22 people, including the primary suspect in the case.

Huang Tai-ming (黃太民), the owner of a bushiban, or cram school, seven university students and 13 senior high school graduates, were arrested under suspicion of cheating during the nationwide university entrance exam on Saturday.

"Huang Tai-ming, a private school owner in Pingtung County, set up the cheating system. Most students cheating on the exam were students at Huang's school," said Tsai Cang-bo (蔡蒼柏), a police official from the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) in charge of the case.

"More than 20 students paid Huang between NT$400,000 and NT$600,000 (US$12,900 to US$19,350) for his help in cheating on the exam. Huang received in total about NT$7.5 million," Tsai.

Tsai said police were also looking for several more senior high school graduates that they believe paid Huang for help in cheating on the exam.

Police said a university student named Wang Hsin-hong (王信鋐) had acted as a broker in the cheating scam. He introduced seven university students to Huang's school to help with cheating on the exam.

Tsai said Huang paid seven university students from different universities nationwide a total of NT$1.75 million for their help in the cheating ring.

Police arrested the seven university students, as well as 13 high school graduates at test sites in Kaohsiung on Saturday afternoon.

Police said the seven university students, who had registered to take the entrance exam at a number of test sites, used coughs as signals to pass answers to the questions on the tests to the 13 high school students, who were at the same test sites. Police said the 13 high school graduates were taking the exam to enter physical education programs.

The vice director of a task force in charge of the nationwide university entrance exam, Lee Zhong-yuan (李鍾元), said yesterday that the 13 students would be suspended from the exam.

An official from the Ministry of Education, Chen De-hua (陳德華), yesterday said Wang and the seven students would be asked to quit their universities.

Police said the students had spent one year studying at Huang's school, and then paid Huang to arrange the cheating ring.

Police said they had found there were 81 people that had attended Huang's school taking the exam. Suspicion was raised when it was discovered that some of the students from Huang's school who had registered to take the exam were already enrolled in universities. Police therefore launched an investigation against Huang and uncovered the cheating ring.

Police said Huang had ran the private school from 1997, and the students from his school have had good admission rates on the different types of nationwide exams.

Police said Huang's school offered classes for many different types of nationwide exams, so they suspect Huang may have helped a number of other students cheat on the nationwide exams.

Police added that they had raided Huang's office and held a number of his documents. Police said the documents might reveal more instances of cheating.
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