Korea's top tax exam scorer confesses he cheated using AI and a hidden camera

What happened

In South Korea, the top scorer on this year's national certified tax accountant exam has confessed to cheating. He used generative AI, meaning AI programs that produce text and answers on their own in response to a prompt. Han Won-seok, 34, spoke on Sunday, November 15, 2026, in a video posted on the YouTube channel of his lawyer, Lee Don-ho:

"I cheated on the certified tax accountant exam. I sincerely apologize for the harm my misconduct has caused so many people."

In the video he wore a mask that partly covered his face. According to the Korea Herald, Han submitted a written confession to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, effectively turning himself in. Just days earlier, he had denied any cheating in an interview.

How the cheating worked

Online, people first suspected that Han had worn AI glasses, which are glasses with a built-in camera and a connection to an AI assistant. According to his confession, though, it was simpler than that. He photographed the exam questions with a mini camera, sent the images to an AI tool and read the answers on a smartphone. It's not known which AI he used. According to the business daily Herald Business (biz.heraldcorp.com), Han doesn't want to make the individual steps public so nobody copies him.

By his own account, he cheated this way in both rounds of the tax accountant exam. He also admitted using the same method in the first round of the certified public accountant (CPA) exam in March. According to broadcaster SBS, Han said some of the devices he used are partly broken. He plans to hand over the rest to investigators "as they are" as evidence.

The most explosive detail: according to SBS, Han sat close to the proctors. In the first round he sat in the middle of the second row in front of the desk, and in the second round in the middle of the front row. Each room had two proctors. If Han's account is true, someone cheated with electronic devices right in front of the proctors' desk without anyone noticing.

Results that were too good

Han drew attention because his results were hard to believe. He had published them himself in a first-hand account in the trade paper Tax and Finance Newspaper. Here are the numbers:

In the second round, where answers are written out in full, he scored 192 points in Accounting Part 1, 190 in Accounting Part 2, 114 in Tax Law Part 1 and 167 in Tax Law Part 2, according to SBS.

Other candidates grew suspicious mainly because of his perfect score in Introduction to Tax Law and because of the time pressure. Each exam block gives you 80 minutes for 80 questions across two subjects. That leaves roughly one minute per question, including the time to transfer your answers to the answer sheet. Overall, 722 of the 6,606 candidates in the second round passed, or 10.92 percent.

In his earlier interview, Han had indignantly rejected the accusations:

"I was just an ordinary test taker, and it hasn't even been a month since I passed. I don't understand why I'm under so much suspicion just because I did well. If AI glasses could answer every question correctly, why would anyone bother studying at all?"

The motive: money troubles and pressure

In the confession video, Han also explains why he cheated, SBS reports. He said he had managed to save little while working as an employee. He then went into business for himself, but the business struggled, partly because operating costs soared due to the war in Russia. He wanted to earn money and hated himself for giving up a good job and disappointing his parents. In his early to mid-30s, he didn't know how many more years he would have to study, and he became very impatient. He wanted to make his parents proud again by passing, "even if it meant cheating." He said he takes full responsibility both for the cheating and for trying to cover it up. He also apologized to the other candidates and to practicing tax accountants.

How authorities and politicians reacted

The exam is administered on the government's behalf by the Human Resources Development Service of Korea (HRD Korea). According to Herald Business, the agency found nothing unusual in either the administration or the grading of the first round. The four proctors who supervised Han across both rounds also noticed nothing suspicious. HRD Korea says it has never before had a case where cheating only came to light through a confession. The agency is now reviewing his statements. If they're confirmed, Han could lose his passing result.

Even before the confession, Prime Minister Han Seong-sook announced "zero tolerance" for exam cheating on Friday. The Korean Association of Certified Tax Accountants, the profession's official body, had called on the authorities to investigate the case.

The case comes at a sensitive moment. According to Herald Business, several candidates were already caught using AI glasses between May and June, including on exams for fire safety, electrical and gas technicians. For the nationwide college entrance exam, the CSAT, this coming Thursday, education authorities have therefore banned all electronic devices, smart glasses included. But Han's confession shows you don't need special glasses to cheat like this.

Online rumors: all still unproven

According to Herald Business, a post is circulating on Korean online forums alongside screenshots from the confession video. Its author claims that the mini camera and earpiece combo has long been in common use. He says hundreds of top scorers on the college entrance exam cheated this way and that the gear costs just 110,000 won, about $83. He offered no evidence. Other users suspect some candidates deliberately set up the AI so they'd land just above the pass mark and avoid suspicion. Some are calling for Wi-Fi to be switched off in exam rooms. Many say the worst part is that the cheating went undetected several times. They wonder how many others might have passed the same way. So far, there is no evidence for any of these claims.

Analysis

The case clearly shows how easily today's AI models can solve questions on professional licensing exams, well enough that the cheater finished first in his year. It was his unbelievably high score that gave him away, not the proctors. By that logic, someone who cheats with AI and scores merely "normally good" would probably never be noticed. That makes the fears voiced on the forums plausible, even if they remain unproven.

For exam authorities worldwide, this is a warning sign. Banning specific devices like AI glasses does little when a cheap mini camera and a smartphone are enough. Possible countermeasures include signal jammers or Wi-Fi blocking, stricter checks at the entrance and statistical analysis of suspicious results. Each of these costs money and effort. Several questions remain open: which AI Han used, how he managed to read the answers without being noticed, and whether there are other cases. So far, every detail about how it worked comes solely from his confession. Investigations by the police and HRD Korea still have to confirm it.