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Insurance policy fraud: Kingpin arrested from Delhi
Gurugram: A day after the Faridabad police busted a gang of four, who had allegedly duped over 100 people of more than Rs 4 crore on the pretext of reviving their
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Gurugram: A day after the Faridabad police busted a gang of four, who had allegedly duped over 100 people of more than Rs 4 crore on the pretext of reviving their lapsed insurance policies, the 25-year-old alleged kingpin of the gang was arrested from Dwarka in Delhi. Officers said probe also revealed that they had allegedly been running a call centre and only hired executives who had a ready database of insurance policies of at least 1,000 people.
The police said that during questioning, the suspects allegedly revealed that they used to sack the executives after three months of service, fearing they would report the matter, said police.
The alleged kingpin was identified as Mukesh Gupta, a resident of Ramesh Nagar in Delhi. Police said Gupta allegedly oversaw operational responsibilities of the irregularities, handled the banking and financial aspects. He was produced before the court on Wednesday and was taken on seven days’ police remand.
KK Rao, commissioner of the Faridabad police, said at least 10 people have been identified as gang members by analysing bank transactions, which showed the gang’s bank accounts to allegedly have received Rs 4 crore.
Rao said the gang operated in an organised manner, and had different members performing tasks such as making calls, creating bank accounts with forged documentation, and withdrawing cash.
Police said the crime team had been on the trail of this gang ever since they received a complaint from a 50-year-old resident of Sainik Colony in Faridabad on January 15 this year. The victim had alleged she had lost Rs 49 lakh between January 2016 and December 2019.
Rao said the investigators began by analysing the bank accounts in which the victim had deposited the money and the phone numbers from which she received calls from suspects posing as different government officials, including Income tax officers.
On Monday night, the police had finally nabbed four suspects while they were allegedly making calls to other victims in different states from a call centre in Janakpuri, Delhi. Police said Gupta’s task was allegedly to withdraw cash using cheques or ATM cards and provide data to the executives.
Police said the suspects allegedly spilled the beans on the group’s functioning and helped the police with the whereabouts of their associates.
Rao said during questioning, they allegedly revealed that they all formed a gang four years ago and started a call centre in Delhi’s Janakpuri after hiring nearly 10 BPO (business process outsourcing) executives to make calls. “The gang used to hire executives who had worked for insurance process in various BPOs and had data of lapsed insurance policies,” he said.
In some cases, they allegedly used to inform their targets that a bonus of Rs 2 lakh was pending with their policy and to dispatch this bonus, they suspects would demand Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000 to be transferred in their accounts.
Police said the fraud was allegedly started by Gupta in 2016 from Uttam Nagar in Delhi. “He became friends with a BPO executive while working for insurance sales call centres. In 2016, he decided to start his own call centre and roped in two partners whose names are yet to be verified. They hired people to make calls and open bank accounts using forged documents,” Anil Kumar, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said.
So far, the police have unearthed 10 fake bank accounts in Delhi, Noida, and Ghaziabad that were allegedly used to receive money from the victims.
The arrested men include two who allegedly operated the call centres and two who had provided bank accounts opened on fake documents, and the kingpin.
The suspects have been identified as Budh Singh alias Rohan, Sandeep Kumar and Sachin Kumar of Uttam Nagar in Delhi and Sarjeet Singh of Sampla village, Rohtak.
