Tokyo police have arrested a 37-year-old woman on suspicion that she took the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) while posing as another person.
Police suspect that Rui Moriyama, a company employee from Tokyo¡¯s Shinjuku Ward, took the TOEIC English proficiency test around mid-May last year in the capital¡¯s Toshima Ward on behalf of a Chinese man from Nakano Ward, who was 19 at the time and was attending a Japanese language school.
The man was also arrested.
Moriyama has remained silent during the investigation, while the man has admitted to the allegations.
Police said Moriyama communicated with the man via a messaging app and scored 955 out of a possible 990 points on the exam. She allegedly received about ?1 million ($6,420) from the man as payment.
According to investigators, Moriyama¡¯s arrest marks the fourth time she has been taken into custody. She has already been arrested and indicted in connection with proxy test-taking for graduate school entrance exams, including at Toyo University, where she allegedly sat exams on behalf of a Chinese woman.
The case involving the Chinese woman came to light last year after university staff grew suspicious when her English performance did not reflect her high TOEIC score after she enrolled. Police were consulted, and a search of the woman¡¯s home revealed Moriyama¡¯s involvement in multiple instances of proxy test-taking, including the most recent TOEIC case.
The woman¡¯s admission to the university was subsequently revoked.
The latest arrest follows a string of recent cases of proxy test-taking.
In June last year, Wang Likun, a 27-year-old Chinese graduate student at Kyoto University, was arrested for taking the TOEIC exam while posing as someone else. He was also arrested in May for entering a testing center under a false identity.
He is thought to have posed as a different person to take the exam and achieve a high score for whoever had commissioned him to take the test on their behalf. He also attempted to use a small microphone under a mask to tell other test-takers in the same venue the right answers.
Given the incident, the organization that administers the exams, the Institute for International Business Communications, conducted an investigation on the tests that were taken between May 2023 and July last year and found that at least 803 people were involved in cheating schemes during that time.
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