Hungary’s biggest language exam fraud exposed

Monor City Court convicted a total number of 122 defendants for bribery offences, acceptance of bribery and forgery of administrative documents. According to the non-binding judgment, the fraudsters sold the exam solutions to their clients for a price ranging from HUF 150,000 (~EUR 430) to HUF 800,000 (~EUR 2296) per exam.

The prosecutor’s office laid charges in bribery, acceptance of bribery and other crimes, writes hvg. The court rendered judgement after 62 trial days, finding a total of 6,800 counts of crimes in the case of the first twenty defendants.

There have been other cases of language exam bribery before; for example, in 2002, a criminal group specialised in obtaining language exam certificates through bribery, among other crimes. This organisation targeted individuals who were in need of a language exam certificate in English or German to earn their degree or to get a job. Through the employees working in different language schools in Pest county and Budapest, the fraudsters had access to the exam tasks sheets and the answers. With this method, the criminal group was able to guarantee successful language exams for their clients for more than a decade.

• Unacceptable! Most Hungarian teachers live in poverty