Gang who duped 500 of Rs 3 cr on pretext of insurance policies busted

With the arrest of four persons, Delhi Police claimed to have busted a gang who have cheated more than 500 people on the pretext of investing their money in insurance policies. They have cheated innocents across Delhi  and 33 other states including UP, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka to the tune of Rs 3 crore.

Police said that the arrested accused have been identified as Mohd Bilal, Manish Tiwari, Naseem Akhtar and Ravi Kant Maurya. Senior police of the North-west district said that the accused opened bogus bank accounts in various banks through forged documents. The accused further revealed that they had cheated another person of Rs 27 lakh through the similar modus operandi.

Police said that on July 31, a retired CPWD official filed a complaint with the Ashok Vihar police station that he had been cheated of around Rs 37 lakh. 

The complainant shared that in October 2012, a man posing as an insurance officer called him and induced him to invest money in lucrative insurance schemes. The caller assured the complainant that he will get 40-60 per cent returns. Convinced, the retired CPWD official invested Rs 2 lakh in five installments.

“Six months later, one Aditya Narayan, posing as Commissioner in IB called the complainant and informed him that he has been cheated in the name of insurance policies. Narayan asked the complainant to hand over all the insurance policy documents at his office in Jhandewalan and Narayan further coaxed the complainant to invest in other insurance schemes. Thereafter, the complainant transferred around Rs 34.25 lakh through RTGS in various accounts as directed by the accused,” said a senior police officer.

“Later this year, the complainant became suspicious. Doubting the credibility of the insurance policies, he sought refund from the callers. To which, the callers sought around Rs 81,000 to get refund of the first installment of Rs 20,36,500. To make the complainant believe that it was all real, the complainant was sent a letter with letterhead of Citi Bank along with a copy of the draft,” said the officer.

Police said that refusing to transfer any more money, the complainant visited the Citi Bank office in CP and got to know that the said draft is a forged one.

“During the course of investigation, on September 1, police got a tip-off that one of the accused, Ravi Kant Maurya was apprehended from Azadpur. At his instance other accused persons namely Naseem Akhtar, ManishTiwari and Mohd Bilal were apprehended,” further said the officer.

During sustained interrogation, they disclosed that since they all worked in various call centres in Noida, they were well aware of the issues of the insurance sector.  While two of them made calls to the victims, the other two forged documents and opened bank accounts.