Fake ASI recruitment racket busted; Jaipur duo arrested by Delhi Police

IFSO said the accused created a cloned ASI website, conducted a mock exam in Jaipur and planned to demand ₹5–10 lakh bribes from shortlisted candidates.

A law student and a web developer were arrested last week from Jaipur for allegedly running an elaborate government recruitment racket and luring hundreds of aspirants with jobs in the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit said on Saturday.

Police said at least 750 candidates applied for 91 fake posts. The accused ran exams mimicking official protocols before arrest ahead of interview stage. (File photo)

According to IFSO officials, the crackdown comes just in time as it prevented large-scale financial exploitation of hundreds of innocent job seekers.

Investigators said the arrested men, Kuldeep (30) and Piyush Agarwal (25), impersonated genuine government hiring procedures to avoid suspicion. They created a fake ASI website, posted an advertisement for 91 vacancies — seven curators and 84 junior assistants — and conducted a written test at an examination centre in Rajasthan’s Jaipur, which is often used for genuine government recruitment exams, they added.

Kuldeep, a commerce graduate now studying law, is the mastermind of the racket while Agarwal, a BTech in computer science, created the website and took care of the technical aspects. The racket took shape in August 2024 and the advertisement was posted the same year in December, IFSO officers said.

Deputy commissioner of police (IFSO) Vinit Kumar, said: “Kuldeep and Piyush were arrested just before the fraud was about to enter the phase they had been working for. The two had planned to call the candidates, who had passed the fake written test, for interviews by December-end and demand bribes between ₹5 lakh and ₹10 lakh from each candidate in lieu of guaranteed final selection.”

DCP Kumar added: “The fake ASI website was designed with great precision, replicating official logos, layouts and colour schemes of government portals, making it extremely difficult for applicants to detect the fraud. Links to the fake recruitment portal were aggressively circulated across student groups, social media platforms and messaging applications, triggering interests from job seekers across the country.”

Kumar said at least 750 aspirants applied for the posts, and 150 of them were shortlisted for the written examination. “The selection was strategically done after scrutinising candidates’ family backgrounds and financial standing, so that the maximum amount of money could be extracted later.”

The written test was conducted on March 16 this year, strictly following the pattern, structure, and procedures of genuine government recruitment examinations — including seating arrangements, question paper formats, and examination protocols, IFSO officials said.

The suspects had planned to declare nearly 50% of the candidates “successful” in the written examination and subsequently call them for interviews.

“However, our team members learnt about it just in time and arrested Kuldeep from Jaipur on December 11. His interrogation led to Piyush’s arrest on December 15, thereby preventing large-scale financial exploitation of aspirants. The two were booked for cheating by personation, forgery and criminal conspiracy,” added the DCP.

Two mobile phones, one laptop and an iPad, a desktop computer, one tablet and passbooks were also seized.