13 arrested in insurance scam

Fraudsters had opened call centre in Bhandup mall; over 100 duped

The Govandi police has arrested 13 persons for duping people by claiming to give them huge bonuses on insurance policies. The accused were running a call centre at a Bhandup mall for this. There are 15 other fraudsters who are still at large.

The police said all those involved in the scam were educated and worked in a well-known company as insurance brokers. They had simultaneously carried out the scam.

A police official said that they had received a complaint in March this year from Govandi resident Sudarshan Awhad. He had got a call from one of the accused, who introduced himself as an advisor from an insurance advisory company. The caller told Mr Awhad that if he paid '55,000, he would get the entire maturity sum on his insurance policy along with a bonus within a month.

“The caller had the account details of Mr Awhad because of which the latter did not suspect any foul play. He then deposited '55,000 into a bank account mentioned by the caller. A month later, he realised he had been cheated,” the official said.

During the investigation, the police found that the account in which Mr Awhad had deposited the money was opened in Delhi. The police also discovered the said bank account was opened by furnishing bogus documents and several persons had deposited money into it.

Later, the police checked Mr Awhad’s phone records and traced the number from which the fraudulent call had been made. A police team visited the address in Bhandup Dream Mall on which the phone number was registered and found a full-fledged office there. After questioning the people working at the office, the police were able to unearth the scam. The official said, “More than 100 people have been duped in the past one year.”

The main accused Paras Manik, a resident of Nalasopara; Ravindra Jaiswal, a resident of Thane and Rupesh Malgaokar from Bhandup, were working as insurance brokers, the police said.

Assistant police inspector R.V. Londhe said, “We have got seven diaries from the office where they maintained a database of the persons they had called until now. We are asking the victims to give their statements.”

The police has also recovered cellphones and SIMs used to commit the fraud. “It has emerged all the SIMs used for the crime and the bank accounts in which the victims were asked to deposit their money were procured on fake identities,” said Mr Londhe.