LUCKNOW, April 6 -- Nearly 800 overloaded trucks allegedly slipped through a single toll plaza using fabricated registration numbers in just two months, in what regional transport officials describe as an organised fraud. The scheme, involving suspected toll staff collusion, enabled drivers to pay bribes instead of facing proper penalties for overloaded vehicles, causing substantial revenue loss to the government. The scam unravelled on Friday when Alok Kumar Yadav, assistant regional transport officer (ARTO) (enforcement) Lucknow, intercepted a truck near the Nawabganj toll plaza on the Kanpur-Lucknow highway, revealing a pattern of alleged toll staff collusion to bypass security systems and penalty mechanisms. The vehicle's actual registration was UP32ZN8925, but the toll receipt issued at the plaza carried a fake number: MA34S9455. Online verification of the bogus registration raised immediate suspicion of deliberate manipulation, the FIR stated. "This appears to be an organised racket. Preliminary findings suggest that a large number of overloaded trucks were allowed to cross toll plazas by using fake registration numbers, thereby evading heavy penalties and causing substantial revenue loss to the government," Prabhat Pandey, RTO (enforcement), Lucknow, said on Sunday. A subsequent analysis of toll data from Itaunja toll plaza for the previous two months, January and February, revealed the scam's scale. Nearly 800 trucks had been cleared using fake registration numbers, mostly from an "MA series" that did not correspond to valid vehicle records. The majority of these vehicles were transporting sand, ballast and morang while carrying loads well above the permissible limit, some overloaded by up to 10 tonnes. Under the alleged modus-operandi, drivers of overloaded trucks paid nominal amounts of Rs.500 to Rs.700 against fake number-based toll receipts, enabling them to avoid detection and escape penalties of around Rs.20,000 for overloading, plus an additional Rs.2,000 per extra tonne. In one intercepted case, the truck was fined Rs.1,08,600 for overloading. The department suspects the fraud may involve deliberate manipulation of FASTag system. "Possibility of toll staff collusion is very strong and is key line of investigation," Pandey said. The Sarojini Nagar police station registered an FIR under Section 318(4) of BNS against truck driver Manish and an unidentified toll plaza employee. Police said an investigation is underway using CCTV footage and previous records across multiple toll plazas....