Crowd-funded anti-bribery portal shuts after amassing 2 lakh users in 48 hrs

Bribes.fyi, a crowd-funded anti-bribery portal, suddenly shut down after attracting 2 lakh new users in just 48 hours. Built by a 20-year-old Delhi BTech student, the site displayed a neon-red map of India for anonymous reports of alleged bribe demands. It logged reports from 253 cities, including police, RTOs, revenue and land records offices, and passport offices.

37% of the reports were marked “refused”, indicating that users said they did not pay but still received their services. The site claimed the shutdown was voluntary and precautionary, stating it did not have the infrastructure to handle the attention safely. The team expressed that their website's purpose was to send a signal, not to point fingers or implicate anyone.