Authorities in Jiangxi province announced on Tuesday that they have punished 42 people, including 22 government officials, in connection with cheating in the recent national college entrance examination or gaokao.

In a statement posted on its official website, the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education said that 12 government officials have been removed from their posts, and three of them have been transferred to judicial authorities for further investigation.

"It is an incident in which fraudulent organizations in other provinces recruited stand-ins online and colluded with government officials to help some college students cheat during the exams," the department said.

Chen Jianpeng, director of the examination office of the education authority in the Donghu district of Nanchang, has been removed from his post and stripped of his membership in the Communist Party of China for taking bribes and dereliction of duty.

A number of officials with the education authority in Nanchang, including the deputy chief of the education bureau and the chief of the city's education examinations authority, have also received warnings over the exam fraud.

A preliminary investigation by the authority found that the cheating was organized by four residents of Heze, Shandong province, all of whom have been detained on suspicion of faking residential identification cards.

Another person involved, who served as an intermediary, has also been detained on suspicion of handing out bribes.

Police say the fraudsters colluded with education examination officials and hospital workers to fake student status for the stand-ins during the college entrance exam registration and physical examination process.

The fraud was first exposed on June 7 by a Southern Metropolis Daily reporter who infiltrated a gang that hired university students to take the gaokao, for "clients" in Nanchang.

The seven high school students who hired the stand-ins had their gaokao results declared null and void, and they have been barred from taking the examination for three years.

For the stand-ins, including five college students, their colleges and employers have been notified, and punishments are still pending.

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