Federal authorities arrested five California residents, accusing them of helping Chinese nationals obtain student visas by taking their English proficiency tests for them.
The scheme, which began in 2011, centered around the owner of a for-profit Newport Beach college admissions company that wealthy parents paid to help their children cheat on college entrance exams and to falsify athletic records of students to enable them to secure admission to elite schools.
“We have so many students that are honest, that work hard to get into the university of their dreams and yet that spot might be taken by someone who cheats,” said Kuemmerle, who supervises the multi-agency Los AngelesThe five arrests were among many that took place on Tuesday, as federal prosecutorstop chief executives, two Hollywood actresses and a legendary fashion designer of taking part in a separate, audacious scheme to get their children into elite universities through fraud, bribes and...
Cai is alleged to have paid for and registered 14 Chinese nationals, referred to only by their initials, for the exam over a one-year period in 2015 and 2016, according to the indictment. Cai, Cao, Elric Zhang, Mohan Zhang and Wang are alleged to have impersonated those citizens by using false, forged and counterfeited People’s Republic of China passports.
“The imposter test takers were generally U.S. citizens of Chinese descent that spoke English well and that could breeze through the exam,” Kuemmerle said. “A lot of these associations were made at Chinese American social organizations.” Faculty said they had pressed in recent years for international students to be better screened for English-language skills, concerned that a troubling number of Chinese undergraduates lacked college-level abilities in the language, even though admissions standards generally mandate that foreign students score at"intermediate" levels on the TOEFL exam.
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