The Mehsana police registered an FIR against 45 persons for running an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) racket. Allegedly a scam helped four youth from Mehsana score high marks in the English proficiency test, without having to prepare for it and helped them go abroad. The four were caught by the United States’ border authorities in March while trying to cross over from Canada, with two others. When they failed to communicate in English before the judge, an investigation was launched.
The police said on Monday, that they arrested three of the 45 accused—invigilator Sunny Patel and two dummy writers identified as Gokul Menon and Savan Fernandes. According to the police, the accused used to hire fluent English speakers as dummy writers to appear for the applicants, in lieu of money ranging Rs 7–12 lakh per candidate, to help them score high bands in the IELTS exam.
The police said that the dummy writers and speakers would be paid Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000 per candidate. The kingpin was identified as Amit Chaudhary, who was yet to be arrested. The police said that at least 16 to 17 candidates, who obtained their IELTS marks through this racket, were already abroad.
Mehsana District Superintendent of Police, Achal Tyagi, told DH that among the 45 accused, majority were the dummy writers who used to appear in place for the original candidates; she said there was a set of accused who would appear in speaking tests for the IELTS candidates.
There were said to be several invigilators from Planet Education, which conducted these exams, who were also allegedly in connivance with the other suspects.
“The racket was being run meticulously with lots of planning at every level. They would know about the examination centres, invigilators...The candidates used to appear for writing tests, but their papers would be written by proxy writers who were good at the language. Same modus operandi followed in reading and speaking tests,” Tyagi said.
According to Tyagi, because the IELTS doesn’t verify video recordings during speaking tests, the original candidates would only lip-sync while the proxy speakers, sitting away from the camera, would record their speaking skills. “The racket took advantage of the fact that the system only verifies the audio recording,” he said.
The FIR was registered with the “B” division police station of Mehsana city against 45 accused under Indian Penal Code sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating), to be read with 120 b (criminal conspiracy). The police said they were investigating how long the racket had been in operation.
The details were revealed after nearly three months of police investigation into the case following a request from the US Consulate General in Mumbai. It started with the March 28 arrest of six men from Gujarat who were trying to cross into the US from Canada.
They were apprehended from a boat sinking in Saint Regis river in Akwesasne, US, and close to the Canadian border. Four of them were from Mehsana, while two others were from Gandhinagar and Patan districts. When they were produced before a court, they couldn’t communicate with the judge in English, and the court had to appoint a Hindi translator to understand them. The court was surprised to find that they had “score 6.5 to 7 bands in IELTS”.
Local police investigation in the state revealed that they had appeared in the IELTS exam in south Gujarat’s Navsari in September 2021.