UPDATE1: Teen arrested over alleged cheating in univ. entrance exams via phone+

KYOTO, March 3 Kyodo -
(EDS: UPDATING WITH FRESH INFO)
Police arrested a preparatory school student in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, on Thursday for allegedly cheating in university entrance exams by using a mobile phone.
The 19-year-old male, whose name is being withheld because he is a minor, is suspected of disrupting the exam process by posting questions on the Internet via mobile phone to solicit answers while the tests were in progress, the police said.
He took the exams for Kyoto University and three other universities and some of his answers closely resembled those contributed by Internet users, university sources said. He has successfully gained admission to at least one of the universities.
The case of suspected cheating by mobile phone has raised ethical concerns over use of the Internet and such mobile devices as more people become digitally savvy.
''I wanted to pass the exams,'' the student was quoted as telling investigators during questioning in Sendai, where he was arrested. ''I made the posts using a mobile phone by myself.''
The police are investigating the precise means by which he apparently posted questions on the Yahoo Japan portal's question-and-answer section to solicit answers to the exam questions.
Although the student claimed that he had acted alone, the police are looking into whether he had any accomplices, the police said.
The police confiscated a mobile phone the student had carried with him.
The student, who graduated from a public senior high school in Yamagata Prefecture and attends the Kawaijuku university preparatory school in Sendai, was held for allegedly obstructing Kyoto University by fraudulent means from properly conducting the English segment of its entrance exam on Feb. 26, the sources said.
Obstruction of business by fraudulent means is punishable by up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 500,000 yen, but no one has ever been prosecuted for cheating during an exam.
The police say the alleged posting disrupted the entrance exam process, which should otherwise have been fair, and interfered with the school's operations by forcing many university officials to respond to the ensuing confusion.
The police took the rare step of arresting the student because the risk that he would flee, given that he had gone missing, and because of the impact his alleged actions have had on the public.
An Internet user with the online name ''aicezuki'' sought answers on the popular portal's ''chiebukuro'' section to questions in the entrance exams for Kyoto, Doshisha, Waseda and Rikkyo universities during exam sessions from Feb. 8 to 26.
Some of the student's answers in the exams, which concerned either mathematics or English, were very similar to responses to his posts from other Internet users on the website, investigative and university sources said.
News of the suspected cheating emerged after an anonymous tip alerted Kyoto University on Feb. 26, prompting the police to examine access logs on the Yahoo portal and communications data at NTT Docomo Inc., a major mobile phone carrier.
The police soon tracked down the student's mother as the subscriber of the Docomo handset used in the case.
The student was found near JR Sendai Station shortly before noon after his family filed a missing person's report following his disappearance the day before.
On Thursday night, he was transported to Kyoto from Sendai to face more questioning.
The student had taken entrance exams for Waseda and Meiji universities in Tokyo when he was in his final year of senior high school, but failed to gain admission to either of them, people who know him said.
He moved to the preparatory school's dormitory in late March last year to concentrate on his studies, they said. He was seen as very serious, and was apparently not very good at mathematics.