Smartwatch cheats force Thai students back to exam halls

• 1 hour ago
 
• From the sectionAsia

Image captionThe cheaters had a team on the outside sending the right answers to smartwatches

Some 3,000 students in Thailand must retake university entrance exams after a cheating scam involving cameras and smartwatches was uncovered.

The sophisticated scam happened at Rangsit University in Bangkok.

The university says three people filmed their test papers using tiny cameras embedded in their glasses.

They then transmitted the images to an outside team, who sent the correct answers to the smartwatches of three other students taking the exams.

One admitted he was being charged $24,000 (£17,000) to receive the right answers to get into medical school.

There is tough competition to get into medical school in Thailand but potentially high rewards, as patients from around the world travel to Thailand for medical treatment.

Image copyrightArthit Ourairat

Image captionThe university's rector uploaded pictures of the cheating equipment to Facebook

Students blacklisted

The university's rector, Arthit Ourairat, told the Bangkok Post the students involved had been blacklisted and would not be allowed to apply to study there again.

The newspaper said the people filming the exams left partway through so they could transmit the films of the test papers to the outside team.

The students involved have not been named and it is not clear whether they are part of a wider network.

Mr Ourairat made the scam public in a post on Facebook. It was shared tens of thousands of times.

"If they had passed and graduated, we might have had illegal doctors working for us," commented one person.