Jewar: Farmer Sunil Barola stood at the edge of his farm, watching people queue in WagonRs and Swifts to buy land he had just sold near the upcoming Jewar airport in Gautam Buddha Nagar. A tent had sprung up overnight. A stall was serving rice and sabzi. Agents sketched dream homes in the air with their hands.
Then he heard it: six bighas were being promised. He had only sold two. His complaint was among several that sparked a probe into one of Delhi-NCR’s biggest land scams — one that didn’t even spare IAS and IPS officers.
“When I confronted the agent, he threatened me,” said Barola, a resident of Goraula village in Aligarh. “He told me I couldn’t prove anything — because the documents were forged.” What began as ordinary complaints of fraud by people like Barola since 2022 reached Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow and finally turned into a covert investigation by Aligarh police under 32-year-old IPS officer Amrit Jain, unearthing a scam worth at least Rs 100 crore in the area.
The shining symbol of development in Uttar Pradesh— the Yogi government’s ambitious Jewar airport, slated for inauguration on 30 October — has now become synonymous with real estate fraud. A sprawling network of agents, shell companies, and forged paperwork has trapped thousands of homebuyers, not just from Delhi-NCR but also from cities such as Lucknow.
The promise of India’s largest upcoming airport, along with plans for a film city and sports city, set off a real estate boom 80 kilometres from Delhi. As land prices surged, so did the scams.
Agents floated shell companies, bypassed approvals from the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), and acquired land from farmers. The same plots were then resold to multiple buyers using forged documents and fake YEIDA maps.
One of the hotbeds of the scam is the Tappal-Bajna block of Aligarh district. In 2022, the Uttar Pradesh government dissolved its Nagar Panchayat and brought the block under YEIDA’s jurisdiction, given its strategic location just off the Yamuna Expressway and a few kilometres from the airport site. Real estate players pounced. What followed was a gold rush of fake plotting, illegal sales, and fraudulent claims of “YEIDA-approved” land.
Now, even legitimate real estate firms are bending over backwards to prove their authenticity. Their social media feeds are brimming with posts asserting that their plots have been cleared by YEIDA and are 100 per cent genuine. Others are using the scam as a cautionary tale to advertise their own services.
I had inherited this problem. People were reluctant to come forward and file complaints. So, we had to think of a better way to understand what was happening and get to the root of it
-Amrit Jain, SP (Aligarh Rural)
An Instagram post by ERM Global Investors flashed AI images of the airport and distraught buyers, along with a caption saying, “Don’t fall for fake promises – choose the right company to secure your investments.”
Meanwhile, Aligarh police say they are racing to contain the fallout. In several cases, they have invoked the Uttar Pradesh Gangsters and Anti-Social Activities (Prevention) Act against accused real estate agents. The Yamuna authority has issued notices to nearly 400 companies.
“Because of the airport and expressway, multiple shady companies cropped up to lure small investors and homebuyers,” said Amrit Jain, Superintendent of Police (Aligarh Rural), who led the probe into the scam. He added that victims initially hesitated to file complaints, hoping they’d get their money back, but then realised this wouldn’t be happening.
“Since January, we’ve seen a surge in the complaints, and that’s when the crackdown began,” he said. “They’ve deceived both the farmers they bought land from — and the buyers they sold it to.”
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An undercover crackdown
When 2021-batch IPS officer Amrit Jain took charge in Aligarh district in November last year, it quickly became more than just a routine posting. There had been a spate of land fraud cases, with dozens of people being duped, including IAS and IPS officers, high-ranking government employees, and businessmen. How the fraud had spread, and where it began, was still a mystery. And CM Yogi Adityanath himself wanted action to be taken.
“I had inherited this problem. People were reluctant to come forward and file complaints. So, we had to think of a better way to understand what was happening and get to the root of it,” said the dynamic young officer who has created a buzz in Aligarh after his crackdown on the land mafia.
To do that, Jain went undercover. Disguised as a software developer from Noida looking to buy a plot, he began visiting sites himself. Over a few months, he visited three to four locations. At one, an agent told him the plot was under dispute — but promised that if Jain paid a little extra, he would “get it cleared from YEIDA” and take care of all the paperwork. At another, he was shown a fake site map with the YEIDA logo stamped on it.
His visits helped him understand firsthand how the agents were fooling farmers and homebuyers, but they only revealed a fraction of how deep and organised the scam really was. Jain wasn’t content with merely slapping a few cases against a handful of players.
“In most of these cases, only IPC Sections 420 (cheating) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) were applied,” he said. “But under those sections, arrests are difficult and one could easily avail bail. So, the crime could not be controlled. That was the core issue.”
To overcome this limitation, Jain and his team of police officials — Circle Officer Varun Kumar Singh and SHO Arun Kumar — began identifying repeat offenders and linking them as part of organised gangs. Once the pattern was established, they registered the accused under the Gangsters Act, giving the police stronger legal ground for arrests and property seizures.
“We invoked the Gangsters Act after gang registration — that’s how we got the power to arrest them,” Jain said. But the accused quickly moved to the High Court, which temporarily stayed the arrests for two months.
In those two months, Jain took the help of AI to dig out old cases against the offenders and reopened them under the new BNSS, invoking Section 107 for attachment of property acquired by the proceeds of crime.
“This allowed us to seize assets, including land parcels near the expressway, which had been fraudulently acquired,” he said.
In July, three people from the JSM Group were arrested under the Gangster Act and about 40,596 square metres of land worth over Rs 60 crore were seized for allegedly developing illegal housing projects on government land. In September, another 15,200 square metres of land worth about Rs 33 crore were confiscated in Tappal. YEIDA, too, has carried out 25 anti-encroachment drives in the past three years, reclaiming land worth about Rs 2,500 crore. It has also warned buyers about unapproved projects near Jewar airport.
JSM was one of the biggest players. They conned both farmers and investors using forged documents. And when we traced their crime proceeds, it crossed over Rs 100 crore
-IPS officer Amrit Jain
For Jain, launching raids and arresting these real estate agents wasn’t enough. So, he went on a rigorous awareness campaign. Every weekend, the villagers gather at Tappal police station to hear Jain speak and share their stories of fraud. With every story, a new company name comes to the fore.
“The farmers aren’t very literate. So, I make them aware of the process to sell the land,” said Jain.
Sunil Barola’s case is among those that show how farmers became unwitting cogs in this machinery.
Deceiving the farmers
At Aligarh’s Goraula village, a panchayat gathering was underway when real estate agent Praveen Kumar Patel made his pitch. He offered farmers generous sums for their land and, one by one, nearly 20 agreed. Among them was Barola, who sold two bighas for Rs 22 lakh.
With that money, Barola reinvested — buying more bighas in and around his village, hoping that when the authorities eventually acquired land for development, he would receive even better compensation.
Kumar, along with associates Ajit and Sharavan, operated under the banner of JSM Private Infratech Limited.
“He told us he was a private real estate agent but had YEIDA approval to buy the land,” Barola recalled.
Soon, weekends in Goraula turned into a giant open house of sorts. Potential buyers came from across the state. Farmers, confident that this was indeed a story of opportunity for everyone, even helped convince them to invest.
Whenever I visit the area, all I see is empty land with cows grazing in the tall grass. That land was supposed to be our home by now. I don’t want a bigger house anymore. All I want is to educate my children and make sure we have two meals a day
-Abdul Rehman, a victim of the land scam
“We didn’t know it was a fraud going on,” Barola said. When he realised that the agents were showing six bighas to buyers while he had sold only two, he confronted them. When threatened, he went to the police. Other farmers followed. They had begun to see Kumar bringing buyers to their remaining fields and claiming them as his own. What started as a single report snowballed, especially after Jain took over. JSM fell into the police net in July, and Patel and his two accomplices was among those arrested.
The company, officials said, had been operating as an organised land mafia, acquiring farmland in Goraula under false pretences and reselling it to multiple unsuspecting buyers using forged documents.
“JSM was one of the biggest players. They conned both farmers and investors using forged documents. And when we traced their crime proceeds, it crossed over Rs 100 crore,” said Jain.
But for homebuyers, it was more than just a loss of money — it was the loss of a dream.
When promised land disappears
At a Jamaat gathering in his local mosque in Shaheen Bagh, Delhi, muezzin Mohammad Umradeen met real estate agent Irfan — who sold him the dream of becoming a businessman.
Umradeen earned Rs 8,000 from the mosque and another Rs 10,000 teaching Quran classes. The offer to buy a plot near Jewar airport seemed life-changing.
“That real estate agent, who was also a regular at our mosque, told me that if I buy now, I can open a shop there. And because of the airport, I’ll earn a lot,” said Umradeen, wearing a skullcap, his sparse beard trailing down his chest.
He bought 10 bighas of land for Rs 6 lakh. But for a muezzin, arranging that kind of money wasn’t easy. He borrowed from relatives, took favours from friends, and somehow pulled the amount together.
When he visited the site with his family—a patch of soil where tall crops swayed in the wind—he saw his future there: a grocery shop, a house, his children studying in Aligarh. Everything seemed perfect.
Every month, he paid Rs 30,000 to the real-estate agent, who’d send him WhatsApp videos of plots being marked and land being cleared. Then Umradeen lost his job at the mosque as could not attend regularly while he was caring for his ill father, who died shortly thereafter. Through it all, hope kept him going — of the new house that would soon rise from that land.
Until one day last year, the imam of the mosque, who had also invested in land in Jewar, broke the news.
“Imam sahab asked me, ‘Do you know that land is illegal and we’ve been defrauded?’ I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do,” said Umradeen.
For the past two years, Umradeen has been chasing the real estate agent for his money. But he’s been reluctant to file a police complaint, afraid that doing so would mean losing any chance of getting it back.
“He promised he’d return my money — but with a 30 per cent cut,” Umradeen said, rubbing his fingers anxiously.
Many others think the same way, said IPS officer Amrit Jain. “They believe the agent will eventually return the full amount. They also think the police can’t recover their money, and if the agent gets arrested, how will they get it back at all?” Jain said.
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Business as usual
Abdul Rehman got ‘justice’, but not his money.
In 2022, a real estate agent showed him a glossy brochure that promised a swanky housing project near Jewar airport, complete with wide roads and quick connectivity.
“It will be the new Gurugram,” he recalled being told.
It was a chance at affordable upward mobility for the 42-year-old clerk at an export company in Noida. Rehman and his family tightened their belts. They skipped meals, saved every rupee, and Rehman gave Rs 30,000 of his Rs 50,000 salary to the agent each month. But they finally realised that the project would never materialise and filed a complaint.
The agent has since been arrested by the Aligarh police but it is cold consolation for Rehman.
“Whenever I visit the area, all I see is empty land with cows grazing in the tall grass. That land was supposed to be our home by now,” he said, sitting beside a stack of faded documents. “I don’t want a bigger house anymore. All I want is to educate my children and make sure we have two meals a day.”
Since July, the Uttar Pradesh government has been advertising its crackdown on the land mafia. In one X post, the Uttar Pradesh Police wrote:
“Under Honourable Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s zero tolerance policy against crime, Aligarh Police has taken major action against a bogus real estate company.”
भू-माफियाओं पर बड़ी कार्यवाही | ₹60 करोड़ की संपत्ति कुर्क 💥
मा. मुख्यमंत्री @myogiadityanath जी की अपराध के प्रति जीरो टॉलरेंस नीति के तहत @aligarhpolice द्वारा एक बोगस रियल एस्टेट कंपनी के विरुद्ध बड़ी कार्यवाही की गई।
यह कंपनी यमुना एक्सप्रेसवे के पास फर्जी नक्शे और झूठे… pic.twitter.com/WZ6yfvPADz
— UP POLICE (@Uppolice) July 21, 2025
Another post reads: “After months of tireless work – tracing detailed money trails, contacting scores of victims, and conducting both ground-level and aerial surveys – Aligarh Police has attached properties worth Rs 33 crore as proceeds of crime.”
Just off the expressway, near Jewar airport, no more sales camps are being held. But the business hasn’t stopped. It’s just quieter.
A group of men gets out of a Scorpio. A husband, wife, and another man walk the edge of an empty plot. He points left and tells the couple, “Here will be the upcoming Jewar airport.” Twenty minutes later, they leave.
Half an hour later, another customer arrives. The same script plays out.
On walls and broken hoardings nearby, the names and numbers of real estate agents are painted: “Want property in Jewar? Contact us.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)