Mastermind who cheated insurance companies by faking death held

Gupta to the racket and convinced him to take the term insurance policy and later declare himself dead to claim insurance benefits.

The mastermind of an organised cheating racket allegedly involved in duping insurance companies by claiming benefits of insured persons after submitting their fake death certificates was arrested on Friday.

The two accused.

Prahlad Aggarwal, a 42-year-old insurance agent who sold policies of various companies, was arrested a day after HT reported about the racket and the arrest of 31-year-old Dinesh Gupta, who was declared dead due to Tuberculosis in papers in February 2014 to claim an insurance of R30 lakh against a term policy.

Gupta had bought the policy from a leading private insurance company in 2014.

An application, seeking death benefits to the beneficiaries of the insured person, in this case it was Gupta, was given to the insurance company, said police. But before the insured money could be provided to Gupta’s family members, a crime branch team caught him following a tip-off about the conspiracy. Gupta ran a handcrafted Rakhis business.

Madhur Verma, deputy commissioner of police (crime), said Aggarwal had lured Gupta to the racket and convinced him to take the term insurance policy and later declare himself dead to claim insurance benefits. It was Aggarwal who purportedly got Gupta’s fake death certificate issued from municipal office in Haryana’s Jhajjar.

“Our team received inputs that some people in cahoots with insurance agents are claiming insurance amounts from companies on the basis of forged death certificates and other relevant documents,” said Verma. The team monitored meetings between the agents and policy holders. They finally zeroed in on Aggarwal and Gupta, who were pursuing their insurance claim with a private company in central Delhi.

“Gupta was caught and his fake death certificate was recovered from him. His interrogation revealed that his case was being pursued by Aggarwal and his family members. We caught Aggarwal following raids at his hideouts in Delhi-NCR,” said an investigator.

During the interrogation, Aggarwal told the police that he had opened bank accounts using forged documents in the name of policy holders who were dead in papers. The objective was to facilitate the benefits of the insured persons and withdraw the money through such accounts.

The police are now probing the role of Aggarwal’s wife, who is an insurance agent.