Chinese authorities have cracked 28 cases of examination fraud ahead of the annual college entrance exams, detaining 21 people and fining four others, sources with the ministries of Education and Public Security said on Sunday.

The suspects reportedly used the Internet to spread information that they had obtained from "leaked" papers of the upcoming college entrance exams, and offered to supply "reliable answers" via mobile phone text messages during the exams for an advanced fee that was to be remitted directly into their bank accounts.

There have been reports of such cases from across the country, from central China's Henan Province to east China's Anhui and Jiangsu provinces.

Local police found that the suspects, who usually had websites with appealing names such as "Easy Exams", posted messages on high school cyber message boards and forums, and opened bank accounts with fake ID cards, but actually had nothing to offer.

Sources with the two ministries didn't disclose if anyone had actually been duped into remitting money into the suspects' bank accounts.

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

They also warned that anyone involved in exam fraud "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, has plagued China's exams system in recent years. Last year several people, including college teachers, were slapped with jail terms for selling test papers for the national college English proficiency exams.

(Xinhua News Agency June 6, 2005)