A network of fake call centres and limited companies were unearthed in connection with cases of cheating more than 1,000 insurance policy holders on the pretext of providing bonus on matured policies, with the arrest of three persons, including an engineering graduate, said police on Friday.
The accused used stolen data of prominent insurance operators, opened call centres with large number of employees and several phone lines to lure policy holders across the country, said Vijay Kumar, DCP (west).
Police have so far identified 361 victims of the racket, including those from Bhubaneswar, Neemuch, Delhi, Surat, Greater Noida, Vadodara,Mumbai, Sahabad, Guwhati, Valsad, Goa and lucknow. They cheated their clients to the tune of Rs 2.23 crore through 2,391 transactions in different accounts, said the DCP.
The illegal activities of the racket were exposed when a case of cheating was registered on the complaint of a deputy director of Ministry of Skill development at Kirti Nagar police station, on June 15. The complainant’s wife had an insurance policy and they were contacted by call centre run by one of the accused. He cheated her of Rs 2.07 lakh.
During investigation, police traced the numbers used to call the complaints and addresses of the holders of accounts in which money was deposited in five installments, he said. In November several raids were conducted in Delhi and NCR and the Chartered Accountant who had helped in the registration of the bogus was also questioned.
“Finally, police managed to trace the addresses of the accused Om Parkash Ray, 28 and Manish Roy, 22, from Mangal Bazar in Uttam Nagar where they had established a new call centre,” the officer said. Accused Om Prakash was the mastermind of the racket while Manish who has a BTech degree in Mechanical engineering, was his cousin, the DCP said.
Another accused Ankit Raheja, who allegedly supplied data of policy holders was arrested from Noida.
From Raheja, MIS database of around 1 crore policies of different insurance companies have been recovered and further raids were conducted to nab other data suppliers, he said. Further investigation in the case is underway, he added.