Bribes.fyi: How India’s Anonymous Crowdsourced Bribe Registry Worked
New Delhi, 18th August 2026: A new website called bribes.fyi has caught attention for allowing Indians to anonymously report incidents where they were allegedly asked to pay a bribe.
The platform describes itself as India’s first crowdsourced bribe registry, where people can publicly document their experiences without revealing their identity.
Users could submit details such as the department involved, the role of the person demanding the bribe, the amount allegedly asked for, the city and the service involved. They could also indicate whether they eventually paid the bribe or refused to pay it.
The reports were then organised across categories including reports, departments and cities, allowing users to look at reported bribery incidents across different parts of the country.
Departments listed on the platform included the Police, RTO, Revenue and Land Records, Passport Office, Municipal Corporation, GST Office, Electricity Board, Income Tax and Food and Drug Administration.
One of the reports listed on the website involved a person who alleged that they were asked to pay ₹2,000 to the Police Department in Pune.
The platform was created by Aryan Nishad, a BTech student, with the idea of turning individual experiences of everyday corruption into publicly accessible data. According to Nishad, the platform was built around the question of why there was no public, structured data documenting everyday bribery in India.
However, the reports on bribes.fyi were crowdsourced and should not be treated as independently verified allegations against any individual or department. The platform itself said that the data was intended to show possible patterns rather than provide an official measure of corruption.
The website saw a sharp surge in attention after going viral. Its team later announced an indefinite break, saying it needed to review its legal and financial infrastructure. The platform has also said that its recorded data will eventually be permanently deleted.
