Two held in Delhi for running fake safari booking racket across India

The Gandhinagar-based Cyber Centre of Excellence of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID)-Crime arrested the duo from Delhi and brought them to Gujarat, an official statement said

Ahmedabad: Two Delhi residents were arrested for allegedly running a pan-India fake safari booking racket by exploiting official websites of major national parks, including Gir National Park in Gujarat, to sell permits at inflated rates, police said on Wednesday.

Police said the two had created fake identities to bulk-book safari slots in advance through official portals, thereby creating an artificial shortage of permits (Representative photo)

The Gandhinagar-based Cyber Centre of Excellence of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID)-Crime arrested the duo from Delhi and brought them to Gujarat, an official statement said.

According to police, Ajaykumar Chaudhary, originally from Bihar’s Begusarai, was living in Delhi’s Badli, and Arvind Upadhyay, originally from Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad, was residing in Delhi’s Karol Bagh.

Police said the two had created fake identities to bulk-book safari slots in advance through official portals, thereby creating an artificial shortage of permits. They then resold those permits through privately operated websites designed to resemble official government portals.

“The accused were selling safari permits for Gir in Gujarat, Ranthambhore in Rajasthan, Tadoba in Maharashtra, Jim Corbett in Uttarakhand, Kaziranga in Assam, and Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh through fraudulent websites that charged far above the government-approved rates,” the statement said.

Officers said police found more than 12,000 unauthorised safari permits, 8,650 booking confirmation emails, and 10,278 linked PDFs.

Police officials said the accused also promoted the fake booking sites through social media and online travel groups, giving the impression of a legitimate service.