With the arrest of six persons, the police today claimed to have busted a gang which allegedly used to target elderly people across the country on the pretext of bonus in lieu of existing insurance policies.
The accused persons arrested so far have been identified as Daljeet Singh (33), Gurpreet Singh (33), Umang Kumar (30), Sunil Kumar (30), Suraj Dubey (23) and Mohit Batra (25). They had floated a company and set up a call centre, said DCP (East) B S Gurjar.
The activities of the gang came to light after the police took up investigation over a case registered on October 5. The complainant, a retired government school teacher, was duped to the tune of around Rs 34.29 lakh on the pretext of bonus on his life insurance policies.
A special team was formed to investigate the case and based on tip-offs, they raided several locations and six accused persons were arrested.
During interrogation, they told the police that they used to collect data -like names, addresses, mobile numbers, bank account detail, insurance policy details, etc - from data vendors at the rate of 20 paise per person.
Then impersonating them as senior officials of Ministry of Finance, they gained the trust of the targets, further strengthening the trust by telling them crucial details, which they procured through vendors, police said.
Soon they announced bonus in connection with insurance policies and asked them to deposit money under various expense heads. During the process, they also called the targets claiming to be RBI officials at times to further gain confidence, said a police official.
While Umang Kumar, Gurpreet Singh, Daljeet Singh and Sunil Kumar, all named themselves as directors of the company they had floated. Suraj Dubey and Mohit Batra were business affiliates. Two more persons, including a woman (who also claimed to be director), are still absconding, said the official.
While Umang Kumar, believed to be the mastermind, is an MBA from Amity University in Noida, Gurpreet Singh is a Delhi University graduate. Daljeet has a masters degree from a university in Ludhiana and Dubey is an undergraduate from DU.
They have all been booked for cheating and other relevant IPC sections, the police official added.
