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What began as a noble initiative to find a partner for people belonging to economically vulnerable groups has evolved into a network of organised fraud across India.

The latest case of mass wedding scan emerged in Madhya Pradesh on Sunday (May 25), when 42 prospective grooms and their families were allegedly duped by a fake organisation that promised brides from an Indore orphanage.

According to reports, the organisers circulated downloaded social media photographs of women, collected registration fees of up to Rs 25,000 from each family, and instructed grooms to arrive at a temple venue in plain clothes. Neither the organisers nor the brides ever appeared.

Also read: Why Karnataka ‘Mangalya Bhagya’ mass-marriage scheme fails to take off

The incident is part of a wider pattern that has evolved since 2020, with fraudsters increasingly targeting government welfare schemes, economically vulnerable families, and desperate bachelors in states facing skewed gender ratios.

Social welfare schemes

One major reason behind the rise of such scams is the exploitation of state-sponsored marriage welfare schemes. Several states offer financial assistance to economically weaker families through collective marriage programmes such as the ‘Mukhyamantri Kanya Vivah Yojana’. These schemes often provide cash assistance ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 51,000 per bride.

Fraudsters, middlemen and even corrupt officials have allegedly manipulated these programmes by organising fake weddings involving dummy couples, already-married pairs or forged identities to siphon off government funds.

Gender ratio

The issue is compounded by severe gender imbalances in parts of northern and central India. Decades of female foeticide and declining sex ratios in states such as Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have created a large pool of unmarried men struggling to find brides.

Also read: Why Supreme Court is concerned with marriage battles choking its docket

Criminal networks exploit this desperation by promising matches from orphanages or poorer states.

Social pressure

High wedding costs and intense social pressure surrounding marriage also make low-income families more vulnerable.

Many turn to community or NGO-led mass wedding programmes to avoid debt, only to become targets for scammers collecting “registration fees” before disappearing.

Scams in different forms

Reportedly, the scams now operate in multiple forms.

In some cases, organised gangs deploy “robber brides” where women who marry men through fake arrangements, stay briefly with the family and then flee with jewellery, cash and valuables. Such “Looteri bride” rackets have been reported across several states.

Police in Bhopal recently arrested a woman accused of marrying 25 men across different states within seven months to steal gold and valuables.

Also read: Why the big fat Indian wedding is getting fatter and the economy is loving it

Similar cases have surfaced in Maharashtra’s Beed district and Uttar Pradesh’s Ambedkar Nagar.

Other scams focus directly on siphoning government welfare funds. In Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, investigators uncovered over 200 fake weddings linked to welfare payments under a state marriage scheme.

In Madhya Pradesh’s Sironj, officials allegedly forged records for thousands of non-existent marriages during the Covid-19 lockdown period to divert crores of rupees from the state exchequer.

Digital fraud

Marriage fraud has also shifted online. Cybercrime units have uncovered fake matrimonial call centres and matchmaking websites targeting thousands of victims nationwide.

In one large operation, fraudsters allegedly used fake profiles, QR-code payment requests and fabricated registration processes to cheat over 1,500 people. Another case involved a suspect accused of running thousands of fake matrimonial profiles targeting women across India while siphoning crores of rupees through elaborate online deception.