Four College Students Arrested for Selling Exam Papers to KCSE Candidates

Four college students have been arrested in connection with high-level national examination fraud.

The suspects were arrested by detectives attached to the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) following intelligence reports of the sale of examination papers to candidates sitting the ongoing Kenya Certificate of Secondary School Education (KCSE) exam.

The prime suspect Gideon Kibet Tanui, alias Evans Kipruto, an IT student at Baringo Technical College, was picked from his rented room next to the college on March 15th while he was busy administering English Paper 2 and Chemistry paper 1 to students of Silibwet and Sitoito secondary schools in Molo via his Whatsapp group with a following of 70 members. 

Detectives discovered that Kibet, who was selling examination papers at a measly Sh500, was a member of two fraudulent examination Telegram groups with over 17,000 followers. 

At the time of his arrest, his MPesa account had over Sh10,000 and was also operating a separate KCB Bank account at Kabarnet branch, where he transferred the received cash from his MPesa to avoid reversals, according to the DCI. To conceal his identity, the SIM card he was using was registered using the identification details of one Evans Kiprono. 

His arrest led the detectives to a second suspect Kevin Kiprotich Langat, a bachelor of arts student at Rongo University, who was arrested on Thursday. Langat was in constant communication with Kibet and had forwarded the English paper to him.
 
“It is at Rongo University where a wider syndicate of the examination fraudsters existed, in a Telegram group dubbed the ‘Kale Group’ created under the name ‘Bailing Out’ among other groups,” DCI noted. 

Langat led detectives to the third suspect Justice Leting, a first-year political science and Swahili student at the same university. Leting was found distributing the Kiswahili paper and preparing answers for the Chemistry practical paper. 

Detectives retrieved a conversation between him and a student named Bett on his WhatsApp, where Leting assured him that all was well and that the answers he had provided were legit since he was a ‘star’ in Swahili. They also found the entire KCSE examination material from Leting’s mobile phone.

Upon interrogation, the suspect said he was working with other students at the institution who are still being pursued. 

Detectives have already zeroed in on the masterminds of this high-level fraud, believed to be hiding in Nandi hills. Cyber and digital forensics experts are also analyzing all the subscribers in the WhatsApp and Telegrams groups involved in the examination malpractice for legal action.