Noida police bust racket forging ISO certificates, arrest 6

The key accused, Mayank Tiwari, 32, from Gopalganj in Bihar, was the company’s director and handled International Organization for Standardization certifications. His aide, Vikas Sharma, 28, from Bulandshahr, was in charge of sales and created fake certificates on his laptop. Others included two website developers, an advertiser, and a customer relations manager.

According to the police, the company had previously operated from Sector 63 in Noida under the name Distributor Channel (Bharat Ka Distributor), where a similar case had been registered earlier this year, and they had been arrested. “They had gone to jail in a similar case some time ago, after which they changed their modus operandi and started making these fake certificates,” said Shakti Mohan Awasthi, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Central Noida.

In the current case, they were arrested on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) lodged by the director of an edible products firm, Indico Retail Pvt Ltd. In his complaint, he told police that he had paid over Rs 3.28 lakh in instalments to the fake marketing firm for digital branding of his products, but no services were ever delivered. He said the accused allegedly sent forged documents and used delay tactics.

Fake data and social media traction

The gang had been mostly targeting clients from outside Uttar Pradesh to avoid confrontations at their office, said the police.

The police said the arrested men would first lure manufacturers in with large sums of money by claiming that they are recognised by the Central government, offer to promote their products online, and get them certified. However, after issuing certain forged documents, they would disappear.

The police said the group posed as experts in digital marketing, claiming they could get a product listed on platforms like Flipkart and Amazon, design websites, create promotional videos, generate barcodes, and obtain ISO certification. Once a client showed interest, the accused would present inflated or fake data and social media traction to build trust.

After receiving payments, the gang would ask for product samples on the pretext of sharing them with distributors. But there were no distributors — and no branding was ever done, police said. They said when the victims would demand returns or results, they were told that their product was substandard, or that the money had already been spent on advertisements and dispatching samples.

The police said the six men have been booked under sections 316(2), 318(4), 338, 336(3) and 340(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and relevant sections of the IT Act, in two FIRs registered at the Bisrakh Police Station.