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Two Raipur NIT students helped GRE cheats: Hyderabad cops

Miss Ai
14 Jun, 2024

Two Raipur NIT students helped GRE cheats: Hyderabad cops

Two students from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Raipur masterminded the GRE fraud, busted by the Hyderabad police on Tuesday. While officials arrested four persons, including an NIT student, another key accused is already in the US, studying for a master’s degree.

HYDERABAD: Two students from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Raipur masterminded the GRE fraud, busted by the Hyderabad police on Tuesday. While officials arrested four persons, including an NIT student, another key accused is already in the US, studying for a master’s degree.

The modus operandi was simple. One group of fraudsters hid under the table of the candidate giving the test from home.

They secretly took photos of the questions and transmitted them to another group who gave the answers. While the accused have so far admitted to helping at least 50 candidates, investigators suspect that fraudsters with a similar modus operandi may be gaming the system in other parts of the country as well.

In January, a representative of the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which administers GRE, TOEFL, and Praxis, complained to the Hyderabad cyber crime police station alleging that a ring of fraudsters were helping students ace GRE.

ETS used a decoy candidate to expose the fraud and named one Guna Sekhar as the person who helped the decoy candidate take the test through fraudulent means.

As part of the investigation, cybercrime sleuths used their decoy and nabbed Guna Sekhar’s associate, A Kiran Kumar, an engineering graduate from LB Nagar.

They also busted another ring of fraudsters comprising NIT Raipur student, M Shravan Kumar, and his associates, M Sai Santosh and P Kishore.

“Shravan and his friend GSJ Aditya are BTech final year students at NIT, Raipur. Initially, they helped their friends cheat on the GRE and TOEFL. Later, they started attracting others by placing online ads promising a good score for 20,000,” joint commissioner Gajarao Bhupal said.

Once a client contacted them, Shravan and Aditya collected their details and arranged an at-home test at their friend’s place in Hasthinapuram in the city.

Sai Santosh and Kishore hid under the table of the candidate and clicked photos of the questions appearing on the computer screen on their cell phone. They shared these with Aditya and Shravan via WhatsApp. The duo provided the answers which would be shown to the candidate, Cyber Crime ACP KVM Prasad said.

Another group headed by Sekhar has a similar operation. His associate, Kiran Kumar, who was caught, told police that Sekhar left for the US in December last year. Joint CP Bhupal said the fraudsters seem to be active in several parts of the country, including in neighboring Andhra Pradesh. Police will seek custody of the accused to gather more details.