Shevchenko number 69 in the world suspected of cheating

Bangalore: A cheating scandal rocked the chess world on Monday after 22-year-old Ukrainian-born GM Kirill Shevchenko was kicked out of the Spanish Team Championship for hiding and using a mobile phone in the toilet during the their parties If the FIDE Ethics Commission finds him guilty, it could be a rare case of a highly ranked player, who has consistently been in the top 100 to top 50, being involved in cheating.

The action against Shevchenko, who became a Grandmaster at the age of 14 years and 9 months and currently represents Romania, was initiated after Francisco Vallejo, his second round opponent in the Honor Division of the Championship Spain by teams in Melilla, he complained of having been away from the board of directors for too long.

When asked by the referee, Shevchenko said he was going to the bathroom because he was feeling unwell. Other players and members of the organizing committee also noticed his suspicious visits to the toilet and, after a search, a phone was found and confiscated from them.

According to a report by Chess.com, a member of the organizing committee saw Shevchenko visiting an individual restroom and found a cell phone there with a handwritten note: “Do not touch! The phone was left for the guest to answer for the night!” (“Do not ring! This phone has been left for the owner to answer at night!”).

Similarities were found in the handwriting and ink used on Shevchenko’s note and score sheets for rounds 1 and 2 and the time zone on the seized phone was allegedly set one hour ahead of Spain, technically to that of Romania.

In a statement, the Spanish Chess Federation said it has modified Shevchenko’s results from the first two rounds – a draw and a win – to count as losses and defeats.

“For me, I would say things started to get weird on move six. He played his move and left the boardroom for over 10 minutes and that happened many times in the next few moves. I thought that he had stomach problems! But at some point, I decided to go out to see where he was and he was standing outside the toilet and when he saw me, he came back to the game room,” GM Bassim Amin, against whom he drew Shevchenko in Round 1. told Chess.com.

Shevchenko is understood to have denied all charges against him so far.