Insurance scam: Three held for duping 1,000 people for years in Delhi

NEW DELHI: This gang of crooks didn’t believe in duping people just once and vanishing. They were so confident about their modus operandi that they laid traps in which people ended up paying them for years while believing they were actually investing in an insurance policy.

Their racket was busted after east Delhi Police arrested three members of their gang, who managed to dupe a 72-year-old Mayur Vihar resident of Rs 1.3 crore over six years. Among those arrested is a manager of a reputed bank, who had designed the conjob. DCP (East) Jasmeet Singh said the crooks had contacted the retired UP irrigation department official in July 2014 by posing as employees of an established insurance company.

They informed the victim that they were calling him regarding his existing SBI Life Insurance Policy and that a huge bonus was due on it. They asked the victim to pay some money in lieu of service charge and processing fee to transfer the bonus in his account. Once the victim paid, the crooks further wove a web of lies and induced the victim into investing in their new policy and renewing his existing one by promising him exorbitant returns. The victim was promised Rs 10 crore in return for an investment of Rs 1 crore.

Till July 2020, the victim transferred them over Rs 1.3 crore. It was only when he demanded to wind up the policy and get the returns that he realised he had been duped. The crooks went underground. The victim then approached police for help. “An FIR under sections of cheating, impersonation and fraud was registered on August 21 and the cops from the ‘special staff’ unit under inspector Satender Khari and SI Sudesh Rana were tasked with arresting the culprits,” DCP Jasmeet Singh said.

Using extensive technical and field investigation, the team managed to arrest three suspects from different locations on October 9. The trio was identified as Rajpal (32), Pradeep (30) and Kapil Gupta (30).

During interrogation, it was revealed that the gang used to work in four units. One unit was led by Gupta, who along with his associates used to procure the data of policy holders. Members of the second unit called up prospective victims and lured them into investing. The third unit was led by Rajpal, who worked as a sales manager with a bank in Tilak Nagar. He was a sort of kingpin and used to provide the bank accounts in which money was transferred.

The fourth part was played by Pradeep who held the bank accounts in which the siphoned money was transferred. They rented the accounts in lieu of a commission. The exact number of their victims is being ascertained. During initial questioning, they confessed to having duped over 1,000 people in the last few years.

Source: The Times of India

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