Chinese cheat admits US college scam, using faked passports so others could take her tests
A Chinese woman has pleaded guilty to conspiring to have two other women take college admissions examinations in her place that helped her get accepted to Virginia Tech.
Yue Zou, 21, acknowledged in US District Court on Thursday to having her boyfriend contact a China-based test-taking service.
After that happened, Zou supplied her passport information through QQ chat, which enabled people in China to create phony passports in Zou’s name that were shipped to her in the United States.
On the passports were the photos of two other Chinese women, who took tests in the Pittsburgh area while pretending to be her.
Assistant US Attorney Jimmy Kitchen told the judge that Zou forwarded results from the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, to Virginia Tech in November 2013 as well as results of a Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, taken by another Chinese impostor in March 2014.
Zou, from Hegang in the province of Heilongjiang, paid an unspecified sum for the TOEFL and US$2,000 for the SAT, Kitchen told the judge.
Zou faces up to five years in prison when she’s sentenced on February 4. She could also be deported, though that will be handled by federal immigration officials in a separate proceeding.
Federal authorities haven’t explained how they learned of the scheme.
Zou’s attorney, Lyle Dresbold, told the judge that Zou will remain confined to her Blacksburg apartment with an electronic monitoring bracelet until she’s sentenced. He told the judge she’s still enrolled at Virginia Tech.
University spokesman Mark Owczarski said he could not comment on her status. But he said students found to have submitted work that is not their own to gain admission would face a range of possible sanctions, including expulsion, under the university’s honour code.
Zou’s TOEFL test was taken by Yunlin Sun, 24. She pleaded guilty in August and faces sentencing on December 11. Prosecutors say Ning Wei, who hasn’t yet been arrested, took Zou’s SAT. They believe she returned to China.
