Police in Uttar Pradesh’s capital - Lucknow - busted an inter-state exam cheating ring that used artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create synthetic photos which enabled proxy candidates to appear for a job exam.
A total of 10 people, including one actual candidate, were arrested, while appearing for the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) Clerk 2025 exam in Lucknow’s Bijnaur area. Several others were absconding.
"They used AI apps like Remini AI, Fotor, and ChatGPT to create a new photo that matched about 70% of both the original and proxy candidate’s faces,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Nipun Agarwal told Decode.
Agarwal said a new AI photo was made to look like both the applicant and the proxy so that examiners couldn’t tell the difference.
Photos Of Proxy & Candidate Merged With AI
The syndicate would use photos of the original candidate and proxy and use prompts like ‘make this photo look like this person’.
“This way, even the invigilators at the gate could not properly identify them, unless there was biometric verification, fingerprints, or some other authentication method. Generally, fingerprint identification is not used in the prelims of government exams," Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP) Rallapalli Vasanth Kumar told Decode.
A screenshot of a WhatsApp chat showing how the gang used AI tools to blend photos of the applicant and proxy to create a new photo that resembled both.
Before AI, they would upload someone else’s photo with a different address while applying but they frequently got caught during the recruitment verification process. To avoid detection they started using AI-altered photos.
Accused Worked At Government Banks
The accused - men in their mid 20s and 30s - worked at public sector banks and have graduate or post graduate degrees.
They had attended coaching classes together and were aspirants themselves around 2016-17, police said. Some of them later got jobs and began training other local aspirants.
They used to charge five lakh rupees and pay a commission to the person who actually sat for the exam.
The cheating ring, which had members from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand was allegedly led by one Anand Kumar, an assistant manager at UP Gramin Bank in Sambhal. Kumar arranged proxies to write the exam on behalf of actual candidates, while his gang member Rohit would scout candidates.
ADCP Rallapalli Vasanth Kumar explained the ring’s modus operandi.
"They have been doing this since 2022, but it was not their main business, they only did it when they needed money. Many of the aspirants had been unable to clear the exam for 3–4 years, so these gang members told them they could pass through a proxy. People who already had some government job would agree to sit the exam in exchange for payment."
The syndicate had pulled off the same con in Bihar without getting caught. In UP, they tried the same in the Railway Recruitment Board and IBPS exams, usually for clerk-level posts.
How The Con Unraveled
The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) informed the exam centre that a proxy candidate, Abhishek Kumar from Gaya, Bihar, was attempting to write the exam in place of candidate Gaurav Aditya, at Bijnaur.
Bijnaur police station SHO Shivshankar Mahadevan said IBPS contacted the exam centre passing on the name and roll number and instructing them to keep a close eye. The exam centre in turn alerted the police. After checking all documents, the fraud was uncovered.
An FIR was filed under sections 319(2), 318(4), 338, 336(3), 340(2), and various sections of The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. Abhishek Kumar was sent to judicial custody the same day.
The police also took the original candidate, Gaurav Aditya, into custody. He revealed that several proxies were present at the exam centre, which led the police to bust a larger ring.
Through the exam controlling authority, the police learned that one individual’s photo matched six other people over the last 4-5 years. When police went to the exam centre, they identified this person coming out of the exam. During interrogation, they discovered several others who were there to write the exam. The suspects were traced using their mobile numbers and addresses. Upon raiding a location, police found 9-10 waiting in a room to write in the exam in other slots.
According to the police, the gang had also applied to appear as proxies for the Railway Recruitment Board and Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation ( EPFO) exams. Abhishek Kumar, who was arrested while taking the exam, had previously appeared for exams on behalf of six different people, between 2022 and 2024. He had filled out multiple application forms using the same photo.
Rampant Cheating Plague Entrance Exams In North India
Entrance exams in North India have been plagued by widespread cheating as lakhs of applicants compete for a pool of a couple of hundreds of jobs.
High levels of unemployment and lack of private investment to create new jobs make government jobs coveted.
Exam paper leaks are par for the course and candidates frequently resort to everything from writing answers on their body to carrying paper chits or mobile phones to the examination hall to enlisting the help of illegal proxies to write the exam for them.
This makes exam cheating a lucrative business.
What Can Be Done To Stop It?
Cybersecurity expert Prashant Sahu said AI can be used to detect AI-based fraud. Sahu said exam centers should use AI-enabled cameras with candidate details pre-fed into the system to identify any proxies.
He said fake Aadhaar cards should be weeded out and examiners should be trained to spot any discrepancies.
“There should also be strict punishment for the accused, making it a non-bailable offense so that fear is instilled and such incidents do not happen again."
Another cybersecurity expert Saumay Srivastava said these AI photos are a form of cheapfakes and that we need to learn to spot deepfakes and cheapfakes.
“We need to learn to identify deepfakes and cheapfakes,” Srivastava said.
“Even if I do a basic face swap, if I look closely at expressions, eyeballs, or the iris, subtle differences make the features look slightly unrealistic; they don’t appear fully real.”
