2 insurance agents booked for duping Trombay octogenarian of ₹1.33 crore

In October 2019, one Nazir Ali Shaikh contacted the elderly man and informed him that the company had appointed him as his relationship manager and shared details of a new policy with him, an FIR registered by Govandi police on Sunday said

The police have booked two agents with a private life insurance company on charges of cheating an 81-year-old man from Trombay of ₹1.33 crore.

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In October 2019, one Nazir Ali Shaikh contacted the elderly man and informed him that the company had appointed him as his relationship manager and shared details of a new policy with him, an FIR registered by Govandi police on Sunday said.

A few days later, Shaikh introduced the complainant to his senior Farooq Ali Raza. The duo claimed that premiums were due in 8-9 of his policies but the complainant said that he did not have money to pay the premiums, police officials said, adding the octogenarian had a total of 13 insurance and other policies.

According to the FIR, in March 2020, Shaikh and Raza met the complainant again and said that his mother, who had died in 2015, had some money deposited in her SBI Mutual Funds account, but she had not named her nominee. They, however, told him that they could make him as his late mother’s nominee and the senior citizen agreed, the complaint said.

The two men prepared an affidavit and completed other documentation and successfully named him as the nominee, following which he received ₹33 lakh in two phases, the police said.

Raza and Shaikh then asked the elderly man to pay the outstanding premiums of his old policies to which he agreed. “However, the duo, on the pretext of making the payments online, accepted cheques from him in their own names,” a police officer said.

Till December 2021, the complainant, by cheques and other payment methods, had paid ₹48.72 lakh to Raza and ₹8.93 lakh to Shaikh, the FIR said. “Raza deposited ₹3.25 lakh in my account while he used ₹9.60 lakh to pay the premiums and kept the remaining ₹35.86 lakh with him. Shaikh used the entire ₹8.93 lakh for his own expenses.”

Besides, the octogenarian told the police that he found out that Raza had used his documents to open a bank account in his name and later in connivance with the bank officials got ₹88.35 lakh of his SBI Mutual Fund account’s money transferred into the account, police officers said.

After chasing the duo for months, the elderly citizen, whose children are settled abroad, recently approached the police.