Delhi Police bust gang involved in hacking online competitive exams; 6 held

Six members of the gang, including a fugitive wanted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Haryana Police, were arrested by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit, following 10-day-long raids across Delhi, Mumbai, Gurugram, and Jaipur.

The Delhi Police on Wednesday said they had busted an interstate module involved in hacking into various online competitive examination websites, including graduate management admission test (GMAT) and joint entrance examination (JEE), solving candidates’ papers and manipulating their results--for which they charged hefty fees.

The arrested men include hackers, solvers, trainers, and coaching institute owners.

Six members of the gang, including a fugitive wanted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Haryana Police, were arrested by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit, following 10-day-long raids across Delhi, Mumbai, Gurugram, and Jaipur. Fifteen laptops and nine mobile phones were seized from the arrested persons, the police said.

The arrested men include hackers, solvers, trainers, and coaching institute owners. The investigation so far has revealed that the syndicate was instrumental in helping 18 candidates clear the GMAT exam and around 500 candidates clear other exams over a period of about three years. The gang charged each client between ₹5 lakh and ₹20 lakh.

They helped a candidate, who was actually a police decoy, score 780 out of 800 marks in the GMAT, said deputy commissioner of police (IFSO) KPS Malhotra.

“The arrested fugitive, Raj Teotia, carried ₹1 lakh reward from Haryana Police for his arrest. He was also wanted by the CBI. Teotia had been part of this syndicate for nearly five years. He had even hired Russian hackers to hack into the examination sites. Three Russians, including a woman, were in touch with him. They had stayed at his Faridabad house between 2019 and 2020. The trio left India after the first lockdown in 2020,” said Malhotra.

The other arrested persons were identified as Arshad Dhunna and his brother Salman Dhunna, both from Mumbai, Hemal Shah from Gujarat’s Gandhi Nagar (currently residing in Mumbai), Kunal Goel from Delhi, and Mohit Sharma from Haryana’s Karnal.

A few weeks ago, DCP Malhotra said, the IFSO team received information that some syndicate, involved in the unauthorised access of various competition exams, was charging hefty amounts for getting candidates desired scores in reputed online examinations. These syndicates were advertising or claiming to have access to online examinations of GMAT, JEE, Cisco- Associate, Professional, Specialty, IBM-All Exams Comptia - All exams EC Council-CEH, CHFI, and CCISO etc, he said.

The team contacted the alleged hackers through a decoy for cracking the GMAT exam. The hackers agreed on the payment of ₹5 lakh and the decoy deposited the token money in their bank account. On the day of the examination (December 26), the suspects asked the candidate to download the software “Ultraviewer” through which they gained remote access to his laptop. They also connected the candidate’s laptop to the solver, who attempted the whole examination and evaded detection from the proctor and other safety measures. The hacker got access to the laptop and disguised the remote access file as the system file. The decoy candidate, a police officer, scored 780 out of 800, which is in the 97th percentile and could have gotten him admission to top MBA colleges worldwide, said DCP Malhotra.

After witnessing what the suspects were capable of, the team members, through technical investigation, located and arrested three of the suspects, the Dhunna brothers, and Shah, from Mumbai on January 1. They were primarily involved in striking the deal with the decoy and then connecting the decoy customer with another module of the syndicate, which gained access to his system and solved the exam. Their interrogation led to the arrest of Goel, who had arranged the solver for the trio. Goel led the police to the solver, Mohit Sharma, who was arrested from Gurugram.

Police said Goel and Sharma had been active for nearly one and a half years. Sharma revealed that he was lured into the gang by Teotia.

Teotia was arrested from Jaipur on January 3, the police said.

Police said Arshad, 39, is a BCom graduate and is running a firm involved in CISCO training (CCNA and CCNT) while his 28-year-old brother Salman is a BTech graduate and is a partner in Arshad’s business. Shah,42, managed payment issues and played the role of negotiator with clients. Goel, 39, also runs a similar network training institute in Delhi’s Tilak Nagar. Sharma, 35, is a B.tech graduate who tutors GMAT aspirants. In 2020, he became a solver, they said.

DCP Malhotra said that 33-year-old Teotia from Faridabad dropped out of a BA course and started working in private companies. In 2017, he started hacking online examinations in Agra. He started similar labs in Jaipur and Kota with other partners. Later, his examination centre was blacklisted but he opened new ones at different locations.

“At one point in time, he got in touch with Russian hackers. He had even gone to Russia to meet hackers in 2018. Russian hackers developed a tool for remotely accessing the online examination system. Teotia disclosed that he and his associates remotely hacked recruitment exams of government organisations as well,” added the DCP.