FOUR CHEATS ARRESTED FOR DUPING PUBLIC ON THE PRETEXT OF INVESTING IN INSURANCE POLICIES

The staff of Police Station Ashok Vihar, North West District, has arrested four cheats i.e. Mohd Bilal@Aman Verma@Ankit Tiwari (24 years), Manish Tiwari (28 years), Naseem Akhtar (28 years) and Ravi Kant Maurya (26 years).  They have cheated around 500 gullible persons all over India in many States/cities on the pretext of investing their money in Insurance policies.

BRIEF OF INCIDENT: On 31/07/2016, one senior citizen Sh. Gajai Singh, a 75 years old retired CPWD official, lodged a complaint at PS Ashok Vihar that some unknown person contacted him telephonically in October 2012 and posed himself has Insurance officer.  The caller induced him to invest money in various lucrative insurance schemes with assured returns to the tune of @ 40% to 60%.  He agreed for the lucrative offers and gave his consent to invest the money and, therefore, handed over 5 cheques amounting to approximately Rs.2 lakhs.

5-6 months after, another person by the name of Aditya Narayan also contacted him telephonically.  He introduced himself as Commissioner in IB and informed him that he  (complainant Gajai Singh) has been cheated in the name of insurance policies.  The caller posing as commissioner, IB further asked the complainant to hand over all the insurance policy documents at his office in Jhande Walan, Delhi.  Accordingly, the complainant went to Jhandewalan depicting name of the office also and delivered all the policies. Thereafter, the complainant was lured by Aditya Narayan to invest huge sums in other insurance schemes.  In this way, he had transferred around Rs.34.25 Lakhs through RTGS in various accounts as directed by the callers from time to time.  In 2016, the complainant doubted the credibility of Insurance, therefore, sought to get refund.  Therefore, he requested callers for this.  On this the fraudsters sought around Rs.81000/- to get refund of first installment in Rs.20,36,500/-.

The complainant further informed that on asking refund he received a letter on the letterhead of Integrated Grievances Management System (IGMS) asking him to transfer a sum of Rs.81,460/- as charges for getting the payment/refund of Rs.20,36,500/-.  A copy of the draft amounting to Rs.20,36,500/- issued by ‘Citi Bank’ Jeevan Bharti Building, New Delhi was also enclosed with the said letter.  The complainant flatly refused to transfer any further amount and instead visited office of Citi Bank in Connaught Place to enquire about the said draft where he was informed that the said draft is a forged one.  After initial enquiry, a case vide FIR No.425/16 U/S 420/467/468/471/120B IPC PS Ashok Vihar was registered and was taken up for investigation.  

TEAM: A team headed by Insp Virender Kadyan, SHO/Ashok Vihar comprising of Insp. R.K. Maan,  SI Sandeep Kumar, SI Parveen Kumar, HC Subhash Chand, HC Vinay, Ct Nawal, Ct Sachin, Ct Sushil and Ct kuldeep was constituted under the supervision of  Shri Vikas Kumar, IPS, ACP/Ashok Vihar and overall supervision of Smt Vijayanta Arya, IPS Addl DCP-I/North West District to work out the case.

INVESTIGATION: During scrutiny of all the bank accounts of the complainant as well as other beneficiaries it revealed that addresses of all the beneficiaries’ accounts were bogus and fake.  No such firms/individuals were found operating/residing at the given addresses. The technical surveillance was also conducted and finally on 01.09.2016, one accused Ravi Kant Maurya was apprehended from Azadpur.  At his instance other accused persons namely Naseem Akhtar, ManishTiwari and Mohd Bilal@Aman Verma@Ankit Tiwari were apprehended.  All the accused were subjected to sustained interrogation and finally they disclosed about their involvement in this case.  They were all arrested in this case. Lot of incriminating documents were recovered at their instances.

During interrogation, it revealed that these accused persons had earlier worked at various call centers of Insurance companies in NOIDA together and hence they were well aware of the issues of the insurance sector. There are two important functionaries of this gang, one who used to ‘call randomly’ and induce the gullible persons to make investments through RTGS posing as official of insurance investment in Axis, reliance, HDFC, Bajaj Axa, MetLife, LIC, etc. and the second gang who operated fake accounts.  The callers used to take 80-85% of the total cheated amount as the majority working of alluring, enticing and convincing the customer was done by them whereas the fake account holder got the remaining share of 15-20%. The invested amount was withdrawn immediately through ATMs of different Banks at different places to evade any trace. All these accounts were found to be opened on the basis of the fake documents like fake voter ID cards, PAN cards, Rent Agreement etc.

In the present case, the invested amount of Rs.34.25 lakh has been found to be transferred in 12 different bogus accounts ICICI, Corporation Banks, HDFC, Axis Bank, Vaisya Bank, etc. Two accuseds Naseem Akhtar and Manish Tiwari are callers and other two accused persons Mohd Bilal@Aman Verma@Ankit Tiwari and Ravi Kant Maurya are the beneficiary account holders. Accused Mohd Bilal opened 4  bank accounts of his proprietorship firm namely ‘UNIT GROW VENTURE’ with ICICI, HDFC, AXIS and Corporation Bank at Delhi/NOIDA.  He had posed as Aman Verma and also used bogus documents in the name of Aman Verma at the banks. It has also been revealed that he opened another proprietorship firm account in the name of DREAMLAND VENTURE with Bank of India, Jamia Cooperative bank where he posed as Ankit Tiwari and also used bogus documents in the name of Ankit Tiwari. The master mind Mohd Belal@Aman Verma@Ankit Tiwari has been involved in similar cases earlier also and has not been traceable in two different cheating cases registered vide FIR No.404/15 u/s 419/420/467/468/471/120 B IPC PS Ashok Vihar, Delhi and case FIR No.76/15 u/s 419/420/467/468/471/120 B IPC PS Amb, Distt Una, Himachal Pradesh.  In FIR No.404/15, the complainant was duped of Rs 27 Lacs in the similar modus operandi and six accused persons have already been arrested in case.  Mohd. Bilal is wanted in that case.  The Bank Account details so far revealed that they had cheated approximately 500 plus gullible persons to the tune of Rs.3 crore.  They used to call around 100 persons/day across India in States of UP, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc. totaling around 33 cities.