Arcadia Man Arrested in Scheme to Cheat on Exams

An Arcadia man was arrested in connection with a scheme that allegedly beat graduate school admission exams by paying experts to take the tests in New York and phone answers to California, to be provided to students for $6,000 a person.

The scheme took advantage of the three-hour time difference and the fact that the same test is administered nationwide on the same day, prosecutors said Monday.

George Kobayashi, 45, was arrested Saturday in El Monte on suspicion of fraud after he allegedly provided test takers with pencils that were inscribed with the answers to the Graduate Record Exam, the Graduate Management Admissions Test and the Test of English as a Foreign Language.

“The victims here are not only the universities that accepted students who cheated on their admissions tests, but the honest students who perhaps did not get into the school of their choice because they were displaced by someone who cheated,” said Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan.

Prosecutors said several hundred test-takers may have taken advantage of the “unique” study method Kobayashi advertised at his American Test Center, which had been in operation from November 1993 until this month.

Prosecutors said Kobayashi had a team of experts take each exam in New York using assumed names

The experts telephoned the answers to Kobayashi’s office in Los Angeles, where they were quickly inscribed onto pencils by Kobayashi’s employees and provided to the test-takers, prosecutors said.

If convicted, Kobayashi faces up to 10 years in prison for mail and wire fraud, and a fine of up to $250,000.