[Newsmaker] School counselor arrested for allegedly leaking SAT questions

A former high school counselor suspected of leaking copies of a US college entrance exam was arrested in Seoul late Tuesday night.

The man, identified only by the surname Lee, is under police investigation for allegedly taking photos of US Scholastic Aptitude Test papers for three years beginning in 2017 while he was working as a career counselor at the Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, a high school in Gyeonggi Province, and selling them to a broker.

The broker, arrested last month, is alleged to have handed them over to a tutor at a private SAT cram school on 10 occasions until the end of last month.

Issuing the arrest warrant Tuesday, the Seoul Central District Court said the suspect had deeply undermined the credibility of SAT tests in South Korea and the country’s reputation on the international stage.

There’s also a risk that the suspect could attempt to flee or commit additional crimes, the court said in granting the police request for physical custody.

Hankuk Academy is one of 17 SAT testing sites in Korea. As the school’s official SAT coordinator, Lee was in charge of test security and management.

By Ko Jun-tae (ko.juntae@heraldcorp.com)