Nearly 800 overloaded trucks allegedly slipped through a single toll plaza using fabricated registration numbers in just two months, in what regional transport officials describe as an organised fraud. The scheme, involving suspected toll staff collusion, enabled drivers to pay bribes instead of facing proper penalties for overloaded vehicles, causing substantial revenue loss to the government.
The scam unravelled on Friday when Alok Kumar Yadav, assistant regional transport officer (ARTO) (enforcement) Lucknow, intercepted a truck near the Nawabganj toll plaza on the Kanpur-Lucknow highway, revealing a pattern of alleged toll staff collusion to bypass security systems and penalty mechanisms.
The vehicle’s actual registration was UP32ZN8925, but the toll receipt issued at the plaza carried a fake number: MA34S9455. Online verification of the bogus registration raised immediate suspicion of deliberate manipulation, the FIR stated.
“This appears to be an organised racket. Preliminary findings suggest that a large number of overloaded trucks were allowed to cross toll plazas by using fake registration numbers, thereby evading heavy penalties and causing substantial revenue loss to the government,” Prabhat Pandey, regional transport officer (RTO) (enforcement), Lucknow, said on Sunday.
A subsequent analysis of toll data from the Itaunja toll plaza for the previous two months, January and February, revealed the scam’s scale. Nearly 800 trucks had been cleared using fake registration numbers, mostly from an “MA series” that did not correspond to valid vehicle records.
The majority of these vehicles were transporting sand, ballast and morang while carrying loads well above the permissible limit, some overloaded by up to 10 tonnes. Under the alleged modus-operandi, drivers of overloaded trucks paid nominal amounts of ₹500 to ₹700 against fake number-based toll receipts, enabling them to avoid detection and escape penalties of around ₹20,000 for overloading, plus an additional ₹2,000 per extra tonne. In one intercepted case, the truck was fined ₹1,08,600 for overloading.
The department suspects the fraud may involve deliberate manipulation of the FASTag system, which electronically links toll transactions to vehicle registration numbers. Officials are examining whether the system was manually overridden at the toll level or whether fake receipts were generated outside the automated process.
“The possibility of toll staff collusion is very strong and is a key line of investigation,” Pandey said.
The Sarojini Nagar police station registered an FIR under Section 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against truck driver Manish and an unidentified toll plaza employee.
Officials warned that the scam has serious implications for law enforcement and public safety. In road accidents, criminal incidents or hit-and-run cases, police rely on toll transaction records and CCTV feeds to trace vehicle movements. If trucks use fake numbers and later reinstall original plates, tracking becomes difficult.
Police said an investigation is underway using CCTV footage and previous records across multiple toll plazas.
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