SEOUL (The Thursday Times) — The top scorer in South Korea’s certified tax accountant exam this year has admitted cheating in both rounds with a miniature camera, a smartphone, and generative artificial intelligence, and says he has turned himself in to police.
The candidate, identified as Han, 34, made the confession on Sunday in a video on his lawyer’s YouTube channel. He scored 397.5 out of 400 in the first round in April, missing only one of 160 questions, which had sparked suspicion online. He had earlier denied cheating. By his own account, he photographed the questions with a miniature camera, sent them to an AI tool, and checked the answers on his smartphone. He said his own business had failed and that he wanted to make his parents proud again. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it received a written confession through his lawyer and has assigned the case to investigators.
Government response
The presidential office said it viewed the matter very seriously ahead of Thursday’s national college entrance exam. An emergency meeting chaired by the policy chief, Ha Joon-kyung, called for fundamental measures to stop cheating with AI, and the office said all suspected AI cheating cases in national certification tests would be fully investigated. Prime Minister Han Seong-sook is due to convene ministers on Monday. The government says anyone found to have used AI to cheat in the tax accountant exam will lose the qualification and be barred from retaking the test for five years, and the Ministry of Finance and Economy plans to move quickly to suspend the validity of his pass certificate.
In October, two college applicants were caught using AI glasses to cheat in entrance exams at two Seoul universities, and education ministry data show four cases of cheating with AI glasses at middle and high schools this year. The government has pledged zero tolerance for such cheating during Thursday’s exam and has stepped up measures to detect high-tech devices at test sites.
