A BANGKOK Thesakij city regulation enforcement officer surrendered to police yesterday and confessed to arranging cheating during the police entrance exams last month.
The move followed a complaint by the Metropolitan Police Bureau’s Training Centre about Pathumwan-based Thesakij officer Jiraphot Plaidoung and 346 applicants seeking to become police officers. Another 178 applicants are expected to face a similar complaint soon.
During a one-hour interrogation, it is alleged that Jiraphot admitted he had offered to allow cheating on entrance exams to people who were attending tutorial schools in Pathumwan to qualify as police and state officials. He said he had been operating the scheme for about a year, adding that many such cheating groups operate in Thailand.
The investigators are going to question Jiraphot further to see if the case extended to other police entrance exams or recruiting exams for other state agencies.
Jiraphot is due to be taken to Ratchadapisek Criminal Court to apply for an initial detention period pending a police probe. Investigators would object to his release on bail on the grounds that the case had a considerable adverse impact on society. An initial inquiry found that many groups were involved in cheating.
Police have charged Jiraphot with racketeering, giving false information to police and violating the Computer Crime Act.
Police have so far interviewed 12 people of interest and the initial investigation revealed as many as 300 people could be involved.
A source in the investigation team said Jiraphot would engage intelligent students at various tutorial schools to take the police test and show the answers to his customers in exchange for Bt5,000 to Bt20,000 per head.
The initial probe found many of the hired students in the police exam also took part in tests for other state agencies that required a minimum Mathayom 6 education.
The city police exam, held at Ramkhamhaeng University’s Bang Na and Hua Mark campuses, was held to recruit 1,800 officers out of 13,000 applicants.
Officers became suspicious of cheating after completed exam papers were checked, with one applicant scoring the highest 123 points, from a possible total of 150, while 50 applicants scored only 13.
It was initially found that university students, some studying medicine, were hired to take the test and allowed applicants who had paid the fee to see their correct answers.
The university students allegedly sabotaged their own answers and got the lowest scores to avoid being caught but some later admitted they had participated in cheating.
Further investigations will be carried out throughout the Kingdom to see how widespread the cheating has been.