Widespread Cheating Uncovered in Royal Thai Police Exams

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Revelations of widespread corruption and cheating in Royal Thai Police examinations have been uncovered in the Thai press this week. Reports stipulate that numerous non-commissioned officers taking the commissioned officer examinations were paying for their pass grade and using an unnamed telephone receiver/transmission device to assist in cheating on the exam.

Thailand, the 24^th of September 2010: According to official press releases, investigations into the alleged cheating and possible bribery had been ongoing for several months, with some 27 offenders arrested from Region 4 and Region 8 examinations.

Initially reports of the corrupt practices were uncovered to the media by Deputy Commander of the Region 8 Police Training Center (Surat Thani), Colonel Saman Chainarong. Col. Chainarong uncovered and arrested 16 offenders cheating on the annual promotional exams, while a further 28 devices used to propagate the scam were found hidden around the campus. The offenders were caught as investigators used transmission detection and prevention equipment to locate the devices and block their signal.

Subsequent national investigations, have revealed the practice as an elaborate scam, whereby 1,000 positions as a commissioned police officer are offered for sale (Bt300-350,000 each), with students paying between Bt5-20,000 to receive the appropriate equipment to assist in cheating on the examination and attain their ‘stripes’. This year only 2,300 promotions were offered by the Royal Thai Police, the scam therefore equating to over 40% of the given positions.

Col. Chainarong expressed his compassion for those non-commissioned officers that had been inadvertently affected by corrupt superiors and colleagues. He stressed that continued damage to the image of the Royal Thai Police was unfortunate but inevitable, urging his colleague to assist in stamping out corruption at the lower ranks which is breeding corrupt practices amongst the future hierarchy of the Royal Thai Police.

Candidates such as Senior Sergeant Major Tanakrit Polket (Khon Kaen) have been hardest hit by this years crackdowns on examination corruption, with most of the exams involving arrested officers to resit the tests. “I had studied hard for this years exams and am sure that my answers were mostly correct, now I may have to resit the exams because other peoples cheating,” Snr Sgt. Polket exclaimed.

At present, two people involved with the propagation of the corrupt examinations have been arrested, but later posted Bt100,000 bail. Eleven other officers have been released as suspects in the investigations, without charge.

Editor’s note:
In total, there were 56,653 officers sitting the examinations nationwide, with 7,682 of those at Region 4’s training facility. In such an apparently widespread case, it is remarkable that only 11 candidates were found cheating in that region and only 27 overall.

The equipment used in the examination was a telephone transmission system, whereby the candidate communicated his questions to a third-party who then transmitted the answer via the same device back until a suitable result was attained.

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