SCAMSTERS RUNNING FAKE CALL CENTRE OF GOVERNING BODY OF INSURANCE COUNCIL (GBIC), A GOVERNMENT INSITUTION, BUSTED

FOUR SCAMSTERS ARRESTED; CHEAT CALL

CENTRE UNEARTHED

The staff of Police Station Vasant Kunj (North) has busted a call centre being run by cheats who were involved in massive inter-state cheating on the pretext of refund/rejuvenation of lapsed insurance policies. The arrested persons include an agent/franchisee of a  Insurance company. A fully functional call centre with all amenities’ like laptops, mobile phones, WLL phones and a huge number of SIM Cards issued on fake Id’s and several incriminating documents has been busted.

Arrested Accused:

1. Naveen Gupta, aged 28 yrs, s/o Satya Narayan Gupta, r/o A-1/33, Sanjay Enclave, Uttam Nagar, New Delhi
2. Sunil Shah, aged 24 yrs, s/o Laxman Shah, r/o D-2, Vishnu Garden, Khyala, New Delhi
3. Sumit Kapoor, ages 30 years, s/o Naresh Kapoor, r/o H. No. 2648, Ramgali, Teliwada, Delhi
4. Sonu Sharma, aged 22 years, s/o Lal Chand Sharma, r/o H. No. 783, Lal dora Extn., Rithala, New Delhi

Incident & Operation:

A complaint was received from one Praveen Kumar Sethi, resident of Vasant Kunj, wherein it was reported that beginning from November 2016, he had been receiving calls on his mobile phone from a purported representative of GBIC (Governing Body of Insurance Council), who had represented himself as calling from its Grievance Redressal Cell. The caller was having the correct details of various insurance policies which had been purchased by the complainant in the past but which had, for various reasons, lapsed before they could attain maturity. The specifics available with the tele-caller and the status check of GBIC as a governmental institution which has been established under the Redressal of Public Grievances Rules, 1998, to set up and facilitate the institution of Insurance Ombudsman in India, lured the complainant into the trap. Thereafter, on the promises made by the tele-caller to facilitate return of his investments made in lapsed policies, the complainant started depositing various amounts under the heads like ‘service fee’, ‘security deposits’ etc. in various bank accounts in names such as Standard Services, Make in India Service, Bali Associates etc. In this manner, he had deposited over a Million Rupees when he discovered that he had been cheated. Accordingly, a case vides FIR No. 87/17, dated 17/02/17, U/s 420 IPC was registered at PS Vasant Kunj North and investigation was taken up.

Since all the tele-parameters provided by the complainant at the time of registration of the FIR were found to be non-functional and issued on fictitious identities and addresses, a special team comprising of SI Kuldeep Kumar, SI Manish Yadav and HC Vikas was constituted under the leadership of Inspector Gagan Bhaskar, SHO PS Vasant Kunj (North) and under the close supervision of Shri K.P. Kukreti, ACP Vasant Vihar to develop information about the culprits and work out the case.

On the basis of preliminary investigations, detailed analysis of account statements, ownerships, transaction patterns and analysis of the CDRs, various parameters were zeroed in to identify the culprits. Sustained efforts spread over the next fortnight which saw the special team using advanced GPS and LBS technologies apart from other ethical interventions led to the identification of an area in Mukharjee Park Tilak Nagar as the locality from where the fake call centre was running. Thereafter, manual sources were deployed to keep a watch upon activities which resemble the patterns of call centres and after proper corroboration, a raid was conducted by the team and the four accused person were arrested while they were operating the fake call centre to trap other victims.

Interrogation and Modus Operandi:

The arrested accused were confronted with the recoveries, the evidence gathered over the preceding fortnight of the operation and especially the live cache memories detailing their current activities’ at the time of the raid and soon, they spilled the beans. Accused Naveen Gupta, who is one of the masterminds of the entire syndicate, disclosed that he is a registered agent of a Insurance company and has been running a call centre in the name of All India Financial Services at Mukherjee Park, Tilak Nagar, New Delhi from where his associates had been operating in the trade of organized cheating.

Being an old hand and well versed with the ways of functioning of the insurance sector in the country, he had developed various contacts who were engaged in breaching the data base of reputed insurance companies. These unscrupulous elements, whose names are not being revealed in the interest of ongoing operations to apprehend them, were using advanced technologies and manual infiltrations in third party vendor establishments to cull out data pertaining to lapsed/dormant insurance policies. The absconding culprits have also been reported to have made breaches in the database pertaining to grievance redressal units which are established by all major insurance providers to resolve client disputes.

With the information in hand for a commission, the accused thereafter devised their strategy to cheat their victims by posing as representatives of the GBIC, a Government body which facilitates the functioning of Insurance Ombudsman.  Various bank accounts were created in names which had an outward appearance of being governmental like ‘Make in India’ wherein the victims were lured to deposit moneys. They had created a well defined technical infrastructure and processes which allowed for easy camouflage of their activities. Several internet domains were registered to create messaging accounts and the likes which led the client into believing that his grievance was actually being handles by a Government institution. A huge number of SIM cards of various telecom circles were being sourced from a set of providers to make the tele-calls. All the transactions were being professionally diarized and monitored to decide when a particular client was to be abandoned, traceless.   

Profile of the Arrested Accused:

Accused Naveen Gupta was born in 1990 and is a graduate. He is unmarried and presently working as an agent in a Insurance company. For the last eight months, he has been operating the said call centre at Mukherjee Park, Tilak Nagar. Prior to this, he was engaged as assistant to similar swindlers who operate to make criminal profits from the insurance industry.

Accused Sumit Kapoor was born in 1987 and has done B.Com and was also previously working as an agent in a  Insurance company. There, he got in touch with Naveen Gupta and joined hands for criminal profits.

Accused Sunil Shah was born in 1992 and is a graduate. He also has a history of working with Insurance companies as an agent.

Accused Sonu Sharma was born in 1994 and is a graduate. He also has a history of working with Insurance companies as an agent.

Recoveries:

1. 2 phones and associated laptops used for the functioning of call    centre
2. Rs. 3 Lakh cash
3. 20 mobile phones
4. Two programmed laptops
5. Sixty-five SIM cards
6. Incriminating documents like bank accounts, ledgers etc.

Efforts are being made to identify and trace the absconding accused persons. The versions given by the arrested accused are being tallied with the recoveries made to learn about other victims of the syndicate.

General public is hereby advised to always cross-check the identities of such fraudulent tele-callers and to report all instances of suspected abuse of government mandated institutions like the IRDA, GBIC etc. to the concerned agencies and to the police.