The Department of Transportation announced recently that three people in New York have pleaded guilty to charges in a scheme in which test takers were provided answers to CDL examinations.
Marie Daniel and spouses Ying Wai Phillip Ng and Pui Kuen Ng pleaded guilty this month to fraud charges in what the DOT calls a “widespread fraudulent test-taking scheme” within the state of New York.
The Ngs own and operate a driving school, N&Y Professional Service Line in Brooklyn, N.Y. Between 2001 and 2012, says the DOT, the couple helped customers with the written portion of the CDL exam in New York by providing answers to the exam to test takers.
“Many of the driving school’s customers did not speak or write in English,” the DOT says in its investigation announcement.
The company also provided its customers with “covert camera equipment” before the tests, which allowed remote viewing by others and allowed defendants to give answers through a “pre-arranged pager mechanism,” the DOT’s announcement says.
About 500 test takes passed the exam with the fraudulent help of the Ngs. They will forfeit about $200,00 gained in the scheme.
Daniel, meanwhile, was part of a group of 10 others indicted in October 2013 in a similar scheme, in which remote camera equipment was used and external test takers, facilitators, “runners” and lookouts would be used to help test takers answer questions during exams.
The DOT says Daniel was an external test taker. The scheme employed items like Bluetooth-enabled pencils and headsets to relay answers back and forth.
Conspiring CDL applicants would pay between $1,800 and $2,500 for the services of Daniel and her conspirators, the DOT says.