Rajasthan Vehicle Registration Fraud: Rs 600 Crore 'Ghost Registrations' Scam Uncovered
A lot of car owners love vintage and rare registration numbers and are willing to pay a lot for them. Due to this, every once in a while someone gets scammed in the process of getting such numbers. However, recently in Rajasthan a massive vehicle registration number fraud worth over Rs 600 crore has been uncovered. This scam involves a number of officials from the Rajasthan transport department and middlemen who helped in selling “Ghost registrations.”
Basically, this scam, which has been named the “Ghost registration” scam, involved recycling of registration numbers from old vehicles and assigning them to modern vehicles. These numbers originally belonged to vehicles that had been scrapped, were no longer operational, were registered decades ago, or were vehicles from remote rural areas.
In a lot of cases, the numbers also belonged to cars whose records were lost, destroyed, or never properly documented. This particular scheme of selling recycled old numbers was aimed to lure in vehicle owners who showed interest in unique, low-digit, rare combinations and special number series. The scammers would sell these registration numbers ranging from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh per number, which were originally sold for as low as Rs 21,000.
Step one of the scam was the identification of dormant numbers. Brokers and insiders working in the scam would first identify “Ghost registrations,” following which, with the help of the transport department insiders, these vintage numbers were reactivated on the “VAHAN” portal, which is India's national vehicle registry system.
In the third step of this scam, transport department officials would allegedly forge paperwork, use outdated vehicle documents, and manipulate registration records, following which these numbers were then assigned to newly registered vehicles, including luxury cars. Finally, the middlemen sold these “Ghost registrations,” turned into active numbers, to customers willing to pay a large premium for special numbers.
As per the reports, the investigations revealed that several irregularities were found in several districts of Rajasthan, including Jaipur, Jhunjhunu, Salumber, Sawai Madhopur, and Dausa. In one instance alone, more than 650 vintage registration numbers were allegedly reassigned to modern vehicles using forged or outdated documents.
This particular fraud in registration numbers was exposed back in March 2025. The authorities noted a sudden spike in transactions involving vintage registration numbers, and the surge was especially visible towards the end of the month. A lot of these numbers belonged to old seven-digit series and other rare combinations linked to older vehicles.
After which, a first formal case was registered in Jaipur, where officials from Jaipur RTO (I) detected suspicious transactions, following which an FIR was registered on March 31, 2025, at the Gandhi Nagar Police Station, and soon after which a wider investigation was triggered across the state. By the end of 2025, the Jaipur RTO issued notices to more than 2,000 vehicle owners.
The state transport department then took multiple steps to restrict the suspected numbers. It has marked a number of registrations as “Not To Be Transacted” on the VAHAN portal. This will prevent vehicle transfers, ownership changes, sales, and other services related to those vehicles. The department also organised camps for verification between December 24–26 in 2025, and more than 90 registration numbers from the seven-digit series were examined.
As a result of this investigation, Jagdish Amarawati, RTO of Dausa, was suspended in November 2025, and FIRs have been registered against dozens of individuals, including Transport Department officials, brokers, and agents. 39 people were accused in Jaipur alone. Following this, all RTO offices across Rajasthan have been ordered to submit detailed investigation reports and examine suspicious vehicle registrations.