Workshop making exam cheating earpieces raided in Basra

BAGHDAD — Security forces raided a house in northern Basra where electronic earpieces and other cheating equipment were being made, arresting two people, as the National Security Service recorded 35 violations during second-round preparatory examinations.

Officers seized devices, equipment and wiring intended for exam cheating, the service said. In Fallujah, a man was arrested at an examination hall while taking $2,000 from students he had allegedly persuaded he could raise their grades. Two students were arrested in Ramadi for sitting examinations in other people’s names, and two cases of electronic cheating using earpieces and wireless frequencies were detected in Kirkuk. The service said the cases came from intelligence and field operations to secure the second round.

Joint teams also closed unlicensed private institutes in Diyala and Kirkuk and four in western Baghdad. Authorities said in late August that 158 private educational institutions had been closed across Baghdad and other governorates in the first phase of a national inspection campaign, most of them unlicensed.

Earlier cases have involved the trade in equipment. Security forces in Erbil arrested 16 people in June 2025 over advertising and selling cheating devices on social media and confiscated 37, and two people were held in Sulaymaniyah a month earlier for selling and repairing wireless earpieces. In June this year an investigation began after 61 sixth preparatory examination booklets were seized from a traveller at Baghdad airport, seven of them allegedly with completed answers. The Council of Ministers approved 90-minute internet suspensions during examination periods in May.