Security operatives across the country during the just concluded Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), has arrested no fewer than 100 examination cheats,  said the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

The board gave the names of the CBT centres as Heritage and Infinity CBT centre and Okwyzil Computer Institute Comprehensive School Ugwunabo, Aba, Abia.

IAs was contained in its Weekly Bulletin released  by its spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin, JAMB said the fraudsters were engaged in multiple registrations to facilitate impersonation during the examination.

“However, in order not to unduly punish honest and hardworking candidates who found themselves attached to these two centres, the board magnanimously relocated all the candidates who had taken or were scheduled to take their examination in the two centres to other centres where they had subsequently taken their examinations,” it said.

JAMB, thereby apologised to innocent candidates involved in the relocation for the inconveniences they may have suffered, reaffirming its commitment to providing equal opportunity to all candidates to articulate their hopes and aspirations.

They also observed that the unwholesome practice was prevalent in virtually all the states of the federation, adding that the act was inflating annual registration of the UTME exercise by up to 30 per cent.

The  body said the arrest of the culprits was made possible by the comprehensive and mandatory identity checks conducted on those taking the examination with a view to fishing out professional ghostwriters before the release of the results.

Among the persons arrested was a notorious cheat who had registered about 64 times in a bid to “ghost-write” for 64 candidates.

It said the drastic action was necessitated by the visual evidence obtained from a careful review of the CCTV recordings by a panel of experts engaged by the board.