A Chinese translator has been jailed for giving driving test hopefuls the right answer as he read out theory questions.
Crooked Peter Hui made up to £100,000 by saying the equivalent of “yes” in Mandarin before he reached the correct multiple choice answer. He was rumbled when officials grew suspicious over his rocketing client list as word of the scam spread.
Driving Standards Agency bosses appointed their own expert, who discovered Hui repeatedly said “shi” to steer candidates to the right answer.
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The 55-year-old, of Nash Square, Perry Barr, was arrested at the Birmingham test centre, in Dale End, last August and admitted conspiring to defraud the DSA.
Now he has been jailed for a year at Birmingham Crown Court – becoming the first translator sent to prison for such a fraud.
Det Con Mark Calvert, from the unit, said Hui “put road users and pedestrians at risk by putting people behind the wheel when they were not properly qualified or competent to drive”.
He added: “We estimated Hui netted around £50,000 in 2012 before his arrest in August – but with a further 101 tests already in his diary for the second half of last year he stood to pocket another £25,000. And that’s on top of the money he made from the fraud in 2011.”
Two candidates who admitted paying Hui to help them cheat – a 25-year-old man from Smethwick and a 45-year-old man from Highgate – also admitted a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud.
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They were ordered to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work and pay £100 costs and had their theory test passes revoked.
Last Wednesday, officers from West Midlands Police’s economic crime unit arrested an Urdu translator suspected of helping bus and lorry drivers cheat on theory tests.
A 39-year-old man from Alum Rock was bailed until a date in September.