150 people took the exam, 149 passed, with a pass rate of 99.33%. This is not "academic elites gathering," nor "teaching miracles," but rather an illegal case of computer information system control.
On October 26th, the People's Court of Gucheng County, Hubei Province issued a document regarding this case. In May 2025, Luo recruited candidates for special equipment operation personnel for a certain emergency technology company operated by Sun. Sun demanded that the candidate pass rate must be guaranteed. In early June of the same year, Luo arranged for Yuan to organize candidates from all over the country under the pretext of "guaranteeing the pass rate". Yuan was paid 200 yuan per person for organizing the candidates to attend the special equipment theory review training and exams at the branch company.
To increase the passing rate, Luo contacted Cheng to seek technical support, agreeing to pay 50 yuan per candidate for their services. On June 13th, Luo purchased a laptop under the instruction of Cheng. Cheng then contacted Wang, who arranged for three members of the technical team, including Yang, to install cheating software and internal network penetration software remotely.
On the afternoon of June 14th, Luo and Yuan brought a laptop to the branch for network configuration. Sun arranged for Tao, the person in charge of the branch, to assist. Tao turned off the monitoring systems of the company and the examination room, and opened the doors of the examination room. Luo arranged for Yuan to purchase network cables, and then connected the computer inside the examination room’s server to the laptop through the network cable. Luo and Wang assisted in completing the network configuration, but the task was not completed on that day.
On June 17th, Yuan continued to connect with Wang and others to configure the network, and sent the list of candidates who would take the exam with special approval to Cheng. Around 1 a.m. on the 18th, after the network configuration was completed, Li made a remote login and imported the list of candidates into the cheating software, completing the pre-exam setup.
On June 18th, the superior authorities conducted a surprise inspection of the examination center and discovered that an abnormal IP address was used to log into the examination server, resulting in tampering with database information. The incident was promptly reported to the authorities. That morning, 150 people took the exam, and 149 passed, indicating an unusually high passing rate. Around 12 noon, Yuan took a laptop from the clocking room as arranged by Luo. Also, at the request of Wang, Yuan connected the laptop to a mobile phone hotspot, and Li remotely deleted the cheating software and related data.
Upon appraisal, the cheating software developed by Li Moumou and others has the ability to change incorrect answers on test questions into correct ones. In other words, it is not the candidates who determine the answers, but rather the system behind the software that makes these changes.
The Gucheng Court found that the defendant Luo and eight others violated national laws by illegally controlling computer information systems. The circumstances were particularly serious, and their actions constituted the crime of illegal control of computer information systems. Criminal responsibility should be pursued. Based on the roles played by the nine individuals in the criminal activities, they were legally distinguished as principal and accessory offenders. Considering various factors such as the defendants' surrender, confession, and acceptance of punishment, the court sentenced each of the nine defendants to three years of probation with a suspension of four years, or one year of probation with a suspension of two years, along with fines ranging from 5,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan. Additionally, the court ordered that any illegal gains be returned to all those involved in the examination process.
The judge stated that this was not ordinary cheating. Instead, it involved illegal control of the examination computer information system through methods such as penetrating the internal network, installing cheating software remotely, importing candidates’ lists, and tampering with databases. This constitutes an offense of illegally controlling a computer information system, and the circumstances are particularly serious. The legal penalty is imprisonment of three to seven years and a fine. Luo, Sun, Cheng, and Wang played a major role in the joint crime and are principal offenders. The other five are accessory offenders. Technical personnel who knew about others’ cheating attempts still wrote and installed cheating software or provided assistance with network penetration, may constitute a joint crime. In serious cases, they may also be convicted of providing programs or tools for invading and illegally controlling computer information systems. If a candidate obtains a special equipment operator certificate through cheating, the certificate should be revoked according to the law.
Legal provision: Article 285, Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that those who violate state regulations by intruding into computer information systems other than those specified in the preceding paragraph or using other technical means to obtain data stored, processed, or transmitted within such systems, or who impose illegal control over such computer information systems, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and may also be fined; if the circumstances are especially serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and shall also be fined.
