Really think about what you are saying here. How does one “cheat” solving a problem in the real world?
There is no such thing as “cheating” in reality. You are not in school. There is only solving the problem and not solving the problem.
There is breaking the law, of course, which still isn’t cheating.
The models were, effectively speaking, still in school. This was their exam, or at least a quiz to see how well they were learning.
They gained the answer in a manner not allowed by the rules of the test. They knew this, we know they knew this because we have copies of the notes they wrote to themselves/each other saying this. They weren't even supposed to be able to write those notes.
> There is breaking the law, of course, which still isn’t cheating.
The laws they broke appear to have been broken in service of covering up the cheating, which they were motivated to do because they understood that cheating was not allowed.