A formal complaint was lodged with the Crime Suppression Division police today (Monday), by the Police Education Bureau and the Royal Police Cadet Academy, against a number of individuals allegedly involved in examination cheating for admission to police academies for non-commissioned officers.

The suspects are accused of working in 4-5 groups, some of whom had access to the examination questions. They allegedly sold them to tuition schools or arranged for answers to be sent to the applicants by various means in exchange for cash.

Pol Maj-Gen Prasert Siriphannaphirat, deputy commissioner of the Police Education Bureau, said today that he hasprovided all the evidence collected to CSD police and wantsthe scammers to be charged with criminal association and fraud.

He said that the gangs are likely to be the same groups which have been involved in previous scams, because the methods they employed were similar.

During the initial investigation, several applicants were caught cheating and were told cooperate, so they will be treated as witnesses, or face prosecution for cheating. All of them were, however, disqualified.

He also said that an investigation is under way to discover whether any police officers were involved in the scam.

Pol Col Uthen Nuipin, deputy commandant of the Royal Police Cadet Academy, said that the admission exam scam this time was somewhat different from the previous instances, in the way that most of the cheating took place in the exam halls.

He said he suspects that, in addition to some exam officials, there were several outsiders involved in the scam.

More than 100,000 people attended the admission exams, most with a BA degree, for about 1,000 seats at the academy.