Mulund woman loses ₹27.67 lakh in attempts to process late husband’s insurance policies

It took more than four years for a 63-year-old woman and her son from Mulund (West) to realise that the two executives of an insurance company and a lawyer, who they had paid ₹27

It took more than four years for a 63-year-old woman and her son from Mulund (West) to realise that the two executives of an insurance company and a lawyer, who they had paid ₹27.67 lakh to process the policies worth ₹79.73 lakh bought by her late husband, were frauds.

Mulund woman loses ₹27.67 lakh in attempts to process late husband’s insurance policies

According to the police, the senior citizen lives with her son, 42, who looks after the family’s printing business, ever since her husband died in 2011.

In 2018, the woman received a call from one Deepika Sharma from Delhi who said the policies her husband had taken had matured and she had been named as the nominee. Sharma told her that there were some taxes and premiums to be paid. Accordingly, the woman paid ₹1 lakh to process a maturity amount of ₹26.33 lakh.

When she did not get the money, her son called Sharma who promised him that in a week they would get ₹45 lakh for all the policies. However, Sharma then stopped answering their calls, a police officer said.

In May, Kumar informed her that he had raided a place along with a police team in Delhi and arrested several people. He claimed to have recovered some fraud money and said he had prepared a demand draft of ₹8.4 lakh in her name. Kumar demanded ₹84,000 as his fee and after the complainant sent him the money, he switched off his phone, the officer said.

The woman received a call in October from one Radhika Sharma who claimed to be an executive with integrated grievance management. She asked for a processing fee of ₹6 lakh to release an insurance amount of ₹72 lakh. This time, the woman decided to approach the police.

On Tuesday, she filed a complaint, claiming that they had lost ₹27.67 lakh in processing fees to the trio. The Mulund police have registered an FIR under sections 420 (cheating) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code against the three people.