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High-Tech Team Helps Cheaters Pass Immigration Test

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

Two British residents were sentenced to jail last week for using an array of computers and wireless gear to feed answers to paying clients taking an immigration test in London, according to the Metropolitan Police.

Rong Yang, 28, and her partner Steven Lee, 36, aroused suspicion when they parked outside the Wimbledon library in March, and a passer-by noticed wires running from under the hood of the car to the passenger compartment.

Police searched the vehicle and found it packed with laptops, radio transmitters and receivers, and other equipment. Also in the car with Yang and Lee was 52-year-old Ka Hung Pang, who'd taken his immigration test inside the library earlier in the day. The Metropolitan Police website continues:

Initially it was thought the equipment was being used as part of a cash machine fraud, while those in the car claimed it was used to watch Chinese television channels. However, as officers were leaving the scene to take the three people to the police station a fourth man, [Ed] Zhuang, arrived.

Officers stopped and questioned Zhuang. When taken back to the station, CID officers found out that Lee and Yang had been helping him with his immigration "knowledge of life" test. They had supplied him with a shirt fitted with tiny buttonhole cameras sewn in, a microphone and a small earpiece.

Zhuang explained the pair would help the person taking the exam, who may be unable to speak, read or write English, directing them via the earpiece to move their body so the camera could view the exam paper. This is then transmitted back to Lee and Yang who would tell the person taking the test which box to tick.

The two men who passed the earpiece-aided exam that day have been sentencedto 180 hours community service, while the two feeding them answers got eight months in prison for three counts of "facilitating a breach of immigration law."

Scotland Yard says Lee and Yang were professionals, who earned a lot of money helping immigrants pass the test that allows them to remain in Britain. The police have begun proceedings to seize a "substantial amount of assets" from the pair.

Photo courtesy Metropolitan Police.

Full post as published by Threat Level on November 17, 2008 (boomark / email).