Faridabad Police bust gang involved in insurance fraud; two held

The Faridabad Police busted a gang of four, who had allegedly duped people of more than ₹5 crore on the pretext of reviving their lapsed insurance policies. The

The Faridabad Police busted a gang of four, who had allegedly duped people of more than ₹5 crore on the pretext of reviving their lapsed insurance policies. The 23-year-old alleged kingpin of the gang and his aide were arrested from Moti Nagar in Delhi on Tuesday.

HT Image

Investigators said the probe revealed that they had allegedly been running a call centre and had hired 10 female executives to make calls and get details of policy holders. The police said the gang members had allegedly recruited people who had lost jobs during lockdown.

The police said they arrested two of the suspects from Delhi on Tuesday. One of them was identified as Mohammad Iqbal of Muzzafarpur in Bihar, who lived in a rented accommodation in Rani Bagh, and the other one was identified as Vinod Kumar of Badshahpur in Bihar, who lived in Uttam Nagar in Delhi. Kumar was the alleged mastermind behind the gang. They were produced before the court and were taken on four days of police remand, said the police.

The remaining two suspects are at large and teams are conducting raids to arrest them. Arpit Jain, deputy commissioner of police (headquarters), said that they had received a complaint from one Yashpal Singh, a Faridabad resident, who was duped of ₹22.63 lakh on the pretext of having his expired insurance policy revived.

“Singh shared all the details of his policies and the amount was transferred to six different bank accounts. Victim kept calling them for updates but the suspects misled him and gave excuses that during lockdown the process was taking time. Later, they stopped taking his calls. When he contacted the insurance company, he realised he was duped and took the help of the police,” he said.

Jain said the suspects were using same set of mobile numbers and used to target people across the county. “We started investigating and, based on technical surveillance, we reached the suspects and arrested two of them,” he said.

The police said that during questioning, the suspects revealed that they used to buy the data through insurance agents and executives, and used the data to make calls to victims.

OP Singh, commissioner of the Faridabad police, said at least 30 victims have been identified by analysing their bank transactions, which also showed the gang’s bank accounts have allegedly received ₹5 crore. “We have recovered ₹14 lakh and 21 mobile phone from their possession, which were used in the crime,” he said.

Singh said the gang operated in an organised manner and had different members performing different tasks such as making calls, creating bank accounts with a forged documentation and withdrawing cash.

The police said the crime team had been on the trail of this gang ever since they received a complaint from Singh.

Singh said the investigators began by analysing the bank accounts in which the victim had deposited the money and the phone numbers from which he received calls from suspects posing as different government officials, including income tax officers.

On Tuesday night, the police finally nabbed two suspects while they were allegedly making calls to victims from their call centre.

Singh said during questioning, they allegedly revealed that four friends had formed the gang two years ago and started a call centre in Delhi’s Moti Nagar after hiring nearly 10 call centre executives to make calls. “The gang used to hire women executives to gain trust of victims and had worked for insurance process in various BPOs. They had the data of lapsed insurance policies,” he said.

So far, the police have unearthed 10 fake bank accounts in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that were allegedly used to receive money from the victims.