Five people have gone on trial for illegally obtaining state secrets when they allegedly organized cheating for the national college entrance examination, according to prosecutors in Binhai County, Jiangsu Province.

Three female students allegedly hid mini video cameras in their bras and the five suspects used wireless equipment to send answers to examinees from June 6 to 8 in Binhai, Yancheng City, prosecutors told Binhai County People's Court, the Yangtse Evening Post reported on Thursday.

More than 20 people, including examinees, were allegedly involved in the case in which the court did not reach a verdict on Wednesday.

Huang Lei, a college student studying in Guizhou Province, and Ge Shicai, a new graduate, allegedly plotted in May to make money by selling answers to national college entrance exam questions.

Huang and Han Yongqiang, another college student, bought audio-video equipment, the report said, and Han was responsible for training examinees to use the equipment.

Ma Shiyang, a teacher at Wuxun Middle School in Binhai, was allegedly responsible for recruiting people to answer the exam questions.

Wei Guoxing, chairman of the labor union of Binhai Middle School, was allegedly the "agent" to find buyers. More than 10 students intended to buy the answers for 10,000 yuan (US$1,460) a subject, the report said.

On June 7, three female examinees hid button-shaped video cameras in their bras and wireless microphones in their ears, and passed security checks. They scanned Chinese language and mathematics questions with the video camera and sent it to a "command center" outside the exam site. Han transmitted the information to Ma to get the answers, and Huang sent the answers back to the examinees, the report said.

Policemen detected strong telecommunication signals during patrols at the examination site on June 8, the last day of the exams, and found wireless equipment on top of a hotel about 100 meters from an exam site at Binhai No. 1 Secondary School.

Ma was paid 50,000 yuan while Wei received 40,000 yuan for their roles in the scandal, the report said. It was unclear how much the others earned.

The college entrance exam questions are considered state secrets under Chinese law.

(Shanghai Daily December 12, 2008)