Chinese fraudsters used hidden cameras and microphones to help immigrants cheat on their 'Britishness' exams

It looked like the kind of hitech kit you’d find in a James Bond movie – a shirt with tiny

buttonhole cameras sewn in, a microphone and a small earpiece.

Yet this was no spy film but part of a sophisticated scam to help Chinese immigrants cheat their ‘Britishness’ exams and stay in the UK.

Husband-and-wife team Steven Lee and Rong Yang would give the equipment to fellow countrymen and sit in a car outside transmitting the test answers via radio airwaves.

Steven Lee and Rong Yang were rumbled when a member of the public saw wires in the car and alerted the police

The scheming couple, who were paid £1,000 for each test pass, were rumbled in March when a member of the public walked past their BMW 3 series, saw wires coming out from under the bonnet into the car and called police.

Baffled officers found the wires led to laptops, radio transmitters and other surveillance equipment in the car and suspected that the pair were involved

in cash machine fraud.

Lee, 36, and Yang, 28, claimed that they were using the top-of-the-range

gear – worth thousands of pounds – to watch Chinese TV channels.

It was only when another man, En Zhuang, arrived at the scene outside Wimbledon library in South-West London that the scam was exposed.

He told police that he had been in the middle of taking his immigration ‘knowledge of life’ test when Lee and Yang told him that officers were searching the car and ordered him to dump the shirt, microphone and earpiece.



Zhuang, who had £1,000 with him, left the kit at a nearby shop before returning to the car.

He explained to police in interview that the pair would help the person taking the

exam – who may be unable to speak, read or write English.



The husband and wife team would give the equipment to fellow countrymen and sit in a car outside transmitting the test answers via radio airwaves.

This would involve directing them via the earpiece to move their body so the camera could view the exam paper. This would then transmitted back to Lee and Yang who would tell the person taking the test which box to tick.

The couple, both British citizens who live in a £600,000 home in Redhill, Surrey, have

made a fortune from the racket and detectives suspect they may be involved in other immigration scams.

It is believed to be the first court case of its kind though police think the scam could be

rife across the country.



Once it had been established that the pair were cheating the immigration system, the case was passed to the Metropolitan police’s Operation Swale – a dedicated team of officers who work with the Borders and Immigration Agency to tackle immigration crime.

Lee and Yang were sentenced to eight months in prison at Kingston Crown Court this

week for three counts of facilitating a breach of immigration law.

Zhuang and 52-year-old Ka Hung Pang, who was in the car when police arrived and had taken his immigration test earlier that day, were sentenced to 180 hours’ community work for deception in seeking leave to remain in the UK.

A police spokesman said: ‘We are now using the Proceeds of Crime Act to seize substantial amount of assets from Lee and Yang.’

The ‘Life in the UK’ immigration tests were introduced last year and are intended to prove that migrants are suitable to be citizens.

