India News | Gujarat Police Apprehend Delhi Man in Bima Lokpal Fraud

Ahmedabad, Nov 11 (PTI) The Ahmedabad police's cybercrime branch has arrested the mastermind of an inter- state gang, which has allegedly duped many across the country in Bima Lokpal fraud, an official said on Wednesday.

Based on technical surveillance, the police arrested Vikas Kumar (30) from Delhi and brought him here on Wednesday, a release issued by cybercrime branch stated.

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Kumar, a native of Meerut, allegedly operated an illegal call centre at Shakarpur in New Delhi with his accomplices and duped people by offering them lucrative returns on their insurance policies.

The fraud came to light when an 82-year-old man recently lodged a complaint that some persons posing as officers of Bima Lokpal had offered to return sum insured along with bonus and profit on two policies he had taken in 2013, the release stated.

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The complainant paid Rs 5.29 lakh towards various service charges as directed by the accused, who kept demanding more money, the official said.

When the accused started threatening him over the phone, the victim approached the cybercrime branch, he said.

Preliminary questioning has revealed that the accused used to target people who want to discontinue their life insurance policies due to financial issues, the official said.

The accused would offer them bonus and additional profit on their policies and would tell the victims that they would get only 40 per cent of the policy amount back if they undertake the process through insurance company agents, he said.

The gang used to ask them to first pay different charges and deposit that amount into their bank accounts, the official said.

According to the cybercrime branch, Kumar and his associates had targeted people from Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir, and duped people of over Rs 1 crore.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)