The Faridabad police busted a Delhi-based gang of four for allegedly duping over 100 people, including one from Faridabad, of more than ₹4 crore on the pretext of reviving their expired insurance policies. While the four have been arrested, the mastermind is still at large, police said.
Police recovered 10 cellphones, 3 laptops, 12 checkbooks of different banks, 30 passbooks, 40 registers and ₹3 lakh cash.
The accused have been identified as Budh Singh, Sandeep Kumar and Sachin Kumar of Uttam Nagar in Delhi and Sarjeet Singh of Sampla village, Rohtak.
The police started looking into the gang when Sainik Colony-resident Molly Roy approached them on January 15 stating that she had been duped of ₹49lakh, over three years, by suspects who portrayed to be employees of various government departments and financial service companies.
Roy said she started getting calls in January 2016 after she raised a request to surrender her ongoing insurance policy. “In February, a woman called claiming to be the employee of an insurance firm and said that to surrender the policy and withdraw my money I needed to make other investments. On February 23, I transferred ₹86,228 to an account number given by her for ‘investment’. This was followed by more transactions, over the next two years, as was asked by the woman and her partners,” she said, adding that the suspects portrayed themselves as officers from the IT department, the RBI and financial service firms, seeking payments under various heads.
“When I showed my inability to make the payments and asked to close this file, I was told the IT department was putting the case on hold for a year. In July 2019, I again got a call from another ‘officer‘ who sought more money for to clear the file and give my dues,” she said, adding that in August 2019 she received a call saying the RBI was looking into her case. Police said that Roy was asked to pay ₹2.7 lakh on July 12, followed by three more transactions.
Over three years, Roy made payments of ₹49 lakh in all to an account number given by the suspects in over 10 transactions, said police. In January, she realised she had been duped and approached the police.
A case under IPC sections 406 (breach of trust), 419 (impersonation), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for cheating), 471 (using forged document as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) was registered at Dabua police station on January 15.
Faridabad commissioner of police KK Rao said the police had formed a team and involved cyber crime investigators to probe the case. “The police took account details from banks, got bank’s CCTV footages and identified suspects when they were opening accounts and withdrawing money. Though they had switched off the phones, we reached the suspects using technical surveillance,” he said.
Assistant commissioner of police (crime) Anil Kumar said, “So far, they have duped more than 100 people across India. They would mostly approach senior citizens.”
