64-year-old man loses ₹1.39-cr in insurance fraud in Gurugram, cops say probe on

Police said that he was allegedly entrapped by the fraudsters, who kept calling him by impersonating as officials of a fictitious government wing named ‘insurance fund department’ and allured him by saying that ₹9 crore had got accumulated from the investments he had made as premiums of life insurance policies and he needed to pay taxes to receive the amount

A 64-year-old man was allegedly duped of around ₹1.39 crore in the last six years after he became a victim of an insurance fraud, police said on Friday.

None of his family members came to know about the fraud for a long time as he did not disclose the matter to them. (REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO)

Police said that the victim, identified as Ishwar Singh, is a resident of Sector 14 in Gurugram. He lives with his wife, two sons and other family members. None of his family members came to know about the fraud for a long time as he did not disclose the matter to them.

Police said the duped amount includes Singh’s lifetime savings worth ₹27.93 lakh, two plots in Jhajjar worth ₹37.26 lakh which he was forced to sell and ₹74.25 lakh which his close friends and relatives deposited in the conmen’s bank accounts on his direction.

According to Singh’s family members, he had studied till class 8 and had retired from the Delhi Jal Board in August 2017.

Police said that he was allegedly entrapped by the fraudsters, who kept calling him by impersonating as officials of a fictitious government wing named ‘insurance fund department’ and allured him by saying that ₹9 crore had got accumulated from the investments he had made as premiums of life insurance policies and he needed to pay taxes to receive the amount.

According to the police, Singh had purchased multiple life insurance policies worth around ₹40 lakh from private firms for himself and his two sons when he was in service and the conmen had somehow gathered details about these investments and started making calls to dupe him.

Police said that Singh had submitted a written complaint to the Gurugram deputy commissioner of police (west) in August last year, which was probed by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Gurugram police.

Police said that after the EOW found merit in the allegations, an FIR was registered against unidentified suspects under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forging a document which purports to be a valuable security or a will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (fraudulently using forged documents or electronic records as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Sector-14 police station on Thursday evening.

Singh’s nephew Rajbir, (30), who goes by a single name, said that his uncle used to move out of the house and talk on the road whenever the fraudsters rang up.

“They had used five to six phone numbers to call him all these times. Overall, there were four or five callers who used to contact him on a regular basis. Every time, they demanded money in lieu of different taxes, including GST or even penalty if the payments were delayed. All the transactions were made through RTGS,” Rajbir alleged.

“No family members, including his wife and two sons came to know about the fraud. In addition, all financial activities of the family were managed by my uncle due to which none got to know that he was continuously depositing money to some other bank accounts,” Rajbir said.

Rajbir alleged that the matter came to light when his uncle sold two plots in Jhajjar for ₹40 lakh in 2018. “He had paid even that money to the fraudsters. Besides, he lost all his lifetime savings, including the ₹17.26 lakh that he got after his retirement,” he added.

Rajbir said that when his uncle was running out of funds, he started calling close friends and relatives and gave them bank account numbers of the fraudsters to deposit more cash.

“On my uncle’s direction, they deposited a total of ₹74.25 lakh in the bank accounts of the conmen. He has a good rapport with everyone since he is a retired government employee and his close friends and relatives always obliged him,” Rajbir alleged.

Rajbir alleged that Singh occasionally used to visit cybercafes and accessed emails with the help of others present to access documents carrying seals of the Reserve Bank of India and the Supreme Court that stated that an amount of ₹9 crore was accumulated in his name. “These were fake documents and my uncle had no idea that he was being tricked”, he added

“After the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, my uncle along with a few friends and relatives even visited Mumbai and Chennai in search of the addresses that the conmen had told their offices were located. However, they could not locate the addresses because they were also fake,” Rajbir alleged. He added that his uncle kept receiving the fraud calls even a week back.

Satender Singh, the station house officer of Sector-14 police station, said that Singh was completely in the grip of the fraudsters due to which he kept depositing money regularly. “Police are investigating the case from all angles,” he added.