1,300 suspected of using ByLock in exam fraud

By Baris Kilic and Serdar Acil

ANKARA (AA) – Prosecutors in Ankara have identified 1,350 suspects believed to have used the ByLock app to cheat in the 2010 civil service exam, judicial sources said Monday.

A probe of the 2010 Public Personnel Selection Exam (KPSS) found 1,350 people who used ByLock to supply members of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) with test questions beforehand, said a source from the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

The KPSS is a vital examination for civil service positions in Turkey.

Following testimony and confessions of suspects after the July 15 coup bid on obtaining test questions, the office launched an investigation into some 13,000 suspects.

Out of the suspects, some 488 women are married to military personnel or ex-personnel, and 111 military staff were arrested under the inquiry into the defeated coup.

In 2010, the Executive Committee of Assessment Selection and Placement Centre (OSYM) canceled some sections of the exam taken by some 800,000 candidates.

The fate of suspects confirmed to have been deeply involved in fraud and cheating on the exam, including some who got government jobs, will be decided by the State Personnel Administration, and they could be relieved of their duties under a state of emergency decree from this August.

- ‘Cheated out of a job’

Meanwhile, thousands of people across the country who took the exam have taken to social media to tell how they were denied state jobs due to the cheating and are seeking redress from the government.

One Facebook group called “Sufferers of 2010 KPSS Exam Seeking Their Rights” has over 2,000 members.

Tugba Saylem, a graduate of Kirikkale University, told Anadolu Agency how the FETO members who got artificially high scores by knowing the questions beforehand had cheated deserving candidates like herself.

Yilmaz Engizek, who has a bachelor’s in public administration, said, “It not for this scandal in the 2010 exam, I would have gotten [a score of] 80-85. This was enough to be working in a public institution. This fraud distorted the rankings.”

Engizek, the father of two children, said he came from the southern province of Kahramanmaras to Ankara, where the fraud took place, to set things straight.

Mahmut Baldan from the eastern province of Malatya said, “The suspects stole my rights. I want my rights back, materially and morally.”

Bylock was used by suspected FETO members in the months leading up to the coup attempt. The smartphone app is believed to have been cracked by Turkish security agencies months before July 15, allowing them to reportedly identify tens of thousands of FETO members.

At least 241 people were martyred and nearly 2,200 injured in the failed coup, which the government said was organized by followers of Fetullah Gulen, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) leader who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, in the U.S.

Gulen is accused of leading a long-running campaign to overthrow the Turkish government through the infiltration of state institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary, forming what is commonly known as the parallel state.