China has cracked down on 28 cases of test paper frauds ahead of the annual college entrance exams, with 21 people detained and four others fined, sources with the ministries of Education and Public Security said here on Sunday.

In these cases, the criminal suspects used the Internet to spread information that they had obtained leaked test papers of the upcoming college entrance exam, and offered to supply " reliable answers" via mobile phone text messages during the exam for those who remit money to their bank accounts in advance.

Such cases were reported in quite a few regions across the country, including central China's Henan Province and east China's Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. Local police found that the detained suspects, who usually launched websites with appealing names such as "easy exams", posted messages on high school BBS, and opened bank accounts with fake ID cards, actually had nothing in their hands.

The sources with the two ministries didn't disclose whether there had been someone who fell for the trick and remitted money to the suspects' accounts.

However, they claimed that "all test papers of the college entrance exams were under tight and effective protection", and urged all exam-taking students and their parents not to believe any story of "test paper leaks" or get involved in any illegal deals for the "exam answers."

They also warned that anyone involved in the exam-related frauds "would face severe punishment."

A total of 8.67 million Chinese students will attend the college entrance exams this year, which are scheduled for June 7 to 10.

A string of cheating scandals, including test paper leaks and surrogate exam-takers, plagued China's exams system in recent years. Last year several people, including college teachers, were convicted of selling test papers of national college English proficiency exams for illegal profits and sentenced to jail terms.

Source: Xinhua