reuters.com
U.S. authorities said on Thursday they arrested four Chinese nationals who were involved in a scheme to falsely take college entrance exams.
Yue Wang, a Chinese student at Hult International Business School in Cambridge, agreed to sit for the TOEFL, the English-language exam widely used to assess foreign applicants, for the trio, federal prosecutors in Boston said.
Shikun Zhang, 24, Leyi Huang, 21, and Xiaomeng Cheng, 21, used the exam scores to gain admission to Northeastern University, Penn State University and Arizona State University, respectively, according to prosecutors.
Zhang, Huang and Cheng paid Wang, 25, nearly $7,000 take the test after they had failed to meet the universities' minimum scores, according to charging documents.
After they were admitted, the three were issued student visas by the U.S. State Department. They face immigration-related charges of conspiring to defraud the United States, prosecutors said.
"By effectively purchasing passing scores, they violated the rules and regulations of the exam, taking spots at U.S. colleges and universities that could have gone to others," William Weinreb, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said in a statement.