Five Chinese arrested in Japan for secretly photographing university admissions exam for foreign students

Five Chinese nationals including the head of a Tokyo cram school for Chinese-speaking students have been arrested for secretly taking images of Japanese university admission exams for foreigners, investigative sources said Friday.

Ding Bin, the 36-year-old school president of MK Education & Technology, and four compatriots including school employees, are suspected of conspiring to obstruct the business of the Japan Student Services Organisation, a government-linked organisation that administers the national standardised test.

One of the group members allegedly took the test under a fake name and used camera-equipped eyeglasses to capture images of the Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students in Tokyo on June 16.

The exam, held twice a year, evaluates the Japanese language proficiency and the basic academic abilities of international students who wish to study at the undergraduate level at universities or other higher education institutions in Japan.

The most recent examples of exams are not made publicly available and the group was apparently attempting to build a larger data set of questions to give the school a competitive advantage, the sources said.

Ding told investigators he wanted to attract more students to his school, Every Moment of Education, to stabilise the business.

The school head and the four others – three men and one woman – allegedly carried out different tasks, including purchasing cameras, taking exams, receiving data and recreating the exam, according to the sources.