Wigged out !

HANOI, Vietnam — More than 20 desperate students in Vietnam paid up to 50 million dong ($3,125) to don elaborately wired wigs and shirts that allowed them to cheat on their college entrance exams, police said Monday.

During a weekend raid, Hanoi police confiscated 50 mobile phones, 60 earphones, 150 SIM cards, eight shirts and five wigs, an officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Ring leader Nguyen Hong Hai, 39, told police that more than 20 students paid 20 million dong to 50 million dong ($1,250 to $3,125) to get wigs or shirts that were wired to mobile phones so they could call in test questions and answers, he said.

The officer said the operation had been running since 2003. The price depended on the popularity of the college the student was enrolling in.

The case was uncovered when two students taking entrance exams for Hanoi's Banking Institute were caught carrying mobile phones to get answers last Thursday, he said.

Operators of the ring gave the students a training course on how to use mobile phones, and wired wigs were used if their hair was too short to cover the earphone, he said. They also used wired-up shirts.

College entrance exams, which take place in the first two weeks of July, are highly competitive, with only about 10 percent of students being admitted into universities.