Three held for faking robbery of luxury car to claim insurance

Three persons, including the owner of a luxury vehicle, were arrested by the Phase 2 police for allegedly faking the car’s robbery to carry out an insurance fraud.

Three persons, including the owner of a luxury vehicle, were arrested by the Phase 2 police for allegedly faking the car’s robbery to carry out an insurance fraud. The vehicle has been seized by the police.

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On March 14, Rishabh Arora (28) had claimed that he was held at gunpoint by three unidentified persons in an area under the jurisdiction of the Phase 2 police station when he had stopped to relieve himself. He claimed that the three men had fled with his BMW after which he had alerted the police and got a case of robbery registered.

The car belonged to Rishabh’s brother-in-law, Mukesh Arora, and had been bought in 2019. While Rishabh lived in a rented accommodation in Paras Tiera society in Sector 137, Mukesh lived in Delhi’s Preet Vihar.

According to his initial statement, Rishabh claimed that he had borrowed the vehicle from Mukesh on the day of the incident. A team comprising personnel from Phase 2 station and the crime detection unit was formed to probe the case.

“During the investigation, we could find no clues at the spot where Rishabh claimed the robbery had taken place. Rishabh also claimed that Mukesh was in Mumbai on the day of the incident, but we found that he was very much in Noida on that day and had left the city only around 5am, after the alleged robbery had taken place,” deputy commissioner of police, zone 2, Harish Chandra said.

Police said when Rishabh was interrogated in detail, he allegedly confessed to the conspiracy and said there had been no robbery.

“It seems that Rishabh, Mukesh and his friend Sumit Gehlotra, also a resident of Preet Vihar, had come up with a plan to fake the robbery and then claim the insurance amount. The duo had come in another vehicle and the BMW was given to them by Rishabh after which he had filed a false report of robbery while Mukesh went ahead and hid the car somewhere,” the DCP said.

Police said the suspects had filed the insurance claim on March 16. Based on Rishabh’s directions, the other two were arrested from Sainik Farms in Delhi and the BMW was recovered from the parking lot of Amprapali Zodiac in Sector 120. The Skoda car in which Mukesh and Sumit had come from Delhi to Noida was also seized, police said.

The suspects had also replaced the number plate of the vehicle with a temporary one. Police are investigating why the car had been parked in that particular society and if anyone from the society was also involved in the crime.

Police said Mukesh invested his money in Yes Bank shares and because of recent events, he had lost a lot of money and was unable to pay the EMI on the ₹45 lakh car loan. The plan was to get the insurance money and pay off the loan, police said.

The Reserve Bank of India has placed Yes Bank under moratorium. Yes Bank customers cannot make regular withdrawals of more than ₹50,000 a day till April 3, in view of its poor financial health due to bad loans. But the moratorium was lifted on Wednesday

The suspects were booked under sections 420 (cheating), 424 (dishonest or fraudulent removal or concealment of property), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 411 (Dishonestly receiving stolen property) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

They were produced before a magistrate and later sent to jail. The commissioner of police has announced a ₹1 lakh reward for the police team for cracking the case.