Fake fingerprint and Iris scan data, fake UIDAI website and fraudulent claims: How Sambhal Police busted gang that ran a AADHAR forgery network
The Sambhal authorities have exposed a pan India gang and arrested 4 people involved in making fraudulent changes to Aadhar Cards. The matter came to light when a case of fraud was reported at the Bahjoi police station, on 2nd March. Chandrasen, a resident of Bahrauli village, accused Vinod, son of Pancham Singh, of deceitfully acquiring a tractor in the name of his terminally ill son. After he passed away, the tractor was illicitly sold to another party. Additionally, Vinod reportedly forged documents using his father’s identity to obtain a policy under the PMJJBY (Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana) from which he gained financial benefits.
The Bahjoi police registered a case following the allegation and commenced an investigation which uncovered a shocking scam. Now, a gang has been exposed that was operating a racket across multiple districts, going door-to-door collecting Aadhaar biometric as well as demographic data and then used it to carry out unauthorized modifications. Four individuals have been arrested from the Badaun and Amroha districts. Several items were recovered from them, including laptops, computer systems and multiple devices used for obtaining biometric data.
The authorities confiscated a variety of items, including counterfeit rubber fingerprints, copies of iris scans, forged passports, 42 fraudulent birth certificates from 13 states, a tampered fingerprint scanning device, mobile phones, 36 PAN card application forms, 27 forms for fingerprint updates and more than 400 Aadhaar enrollment applications intended for alterations. Furthermore, eight passport-sized photographs were also retrieved.
The criminal group had developed a portal that closely mimicked the UIDAI web portal through coding. This bogus site was utilized by multiple retailers acting as Aadhaar service centers, enabling them to make unauthorized changes to Aadhaar information of people.
During the investigation of Vinod and the examination of his mobile device, cops discovered two Aadhaar cards registered under the name of Pancham Singh. Both shared the same Aadhaar number but displayed differing dates of birth, one recorded as 01.01.1955 and the other as 01.07.1976. Additionally, it was revealed that Pancham Singh’s Aadhaar card was associated with Vinod’s mobile phone.
A review of the update history on the UIDAI website indicated that the date of birth had been intentionally modified to make him appear 21 years younger. During questioning, Vinod admitted to paying ₹3000 to facilitate this alteration, aiming to present his father’s age as under 50 years to qualify for the PMJJBY (Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana) scheme.
The gang began its operations in 2023. It all started when Ashish, who was previously involved in Aadhaar update services, met a person named Kasim who revealed that there was a lucrative opportunity in fake Aadhaar updates. He explained that many people were willing to pay thousands of rupees to unlawfully change details like age or address on their Aadhaar cards. Kasim taught Ashish how to modify fingerprint scanners so that individuals could update their Aadhaar details from home.
They tampered with Mantra-brand scanning machines to achieve this and created a fake website that resembled the official Aadhaar portal. Kasim is originally from Wazirabad, Timarpur Police Station area in New Delhi and was residing in the Nai Basti locality of Naugawan Sadat, Amroha.
Ashish from Adoli village, Dharmendra Kumar from Baini Nagla and Raunak from Nizampur, each from the Ujhani police station area of Badaun district were also part of this gang. They were involved in making fraudulent modifications to Aadhaar data. Several other individuals are also suspected to be linked with the gang and the police are actively searching for them. The gang had a member who was skilled in coding and web designing and developed the fake Aadhaar portal. Retailers employed this portal to collect people’s fingerprints and data, which they then forwarded to the gang.
Since changes in Aadhaar can only be made using the ID of an authorized operator, the gang either lured these operators with incentives or fraudulently gained access to their credentials. The members of this gang have been involved in the crime for the past one and a half years. During this time, they have altered the mobile numbers linked to over 1,500 Aadhaar cards and have made fake changes to Aadhaar details using more than 400 fabricated documents.
In December 2024, after attempts to update age through the submission of birth certificates proved unsuccessful, the gang resorted to using counterfeit passports to modify the date of birth on Aadhaar cards. They established a fraudulent web portal, crafted by a gang member with web development skills. Multiple such portals were created and by February 2025, they had produced and uploaded over 20 fake passports for Aadhaar modifications, achieving success in several instances.
Ashish took on the role of a vendor, managing a network of 200 to 300 retailers. The group exploited a counterfeit portal to upload data to the official UIDAI portal, utilizing modified fingerprint scanning technology. They also contacted legitimate Aadhaar service centers to procure their details and credentials. They had previously created rubber replicas of the fingerprints and iris scans belonging to Aadhaar operators.
They even incentivized the operators with ₹50 for each individual under the guise of “data correction” which enabled them to obtain OTPs from the Aadhaar service centers for system access. The accused also disabled GPS devices so that any computer would appear authorized.
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