A 57-YEAR-OLD woman, employed with a city hospital, was allegedly duped of more than Rs 4 lakh by people who pretended to be from an insurance company from which she had purchased life insurance in 2013. According to police, the series of events that led to the alleged fraud began in July 2016, when Ranjani Subramaniam, a medical officer with a city hospital, received a phone call from a person claiming to be from an insurance company. She had purchased an insurance policy worth Rs 1 lakh in 2013 from this company. However, the next year, she needed the money and withdrew the capital amount. The caller, who identified himself as Subbarao, told her that she was due to receive Rs 22 lakh from the insurance firm, police said. The woman, however, told the caller that she had withdrawn her policy a few years ago and that he might have been mistaken. Subramaniam, who lives with her 74-year-old mother in Andheri, later received another call from a person identifying himself as Dr Mangat, who also claimed to be calling from the insurance company. He, too, told her that she was due to receive Rs 22 lakh from the company. She informed him also that she had already withdrawn the policy. A few days later this exercise was repeated when she got a call from a woman, who identified herself as Mrs Sharma, who also told her that she was due to receive Rs 22 lakh. The calls kept coming over a period of time, police said. Eventually, after several such calls, Subramaniam agreed to receive the amount. She was then asked to make a payment of Rs 23,000 through National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) to an ‘Indian Investment’ account. Later, under various pretexts, the accused asked Subramaniam to deposit amounts of Rs 1.10 lakh, Rs 19,000, Rs 1.90 lakh, Rs 68,000 and other smaller amounts, taking the total amount to more than Rs 4 lakh. Then, when she went to her bank to make another NEFT payment of Rs 1 lakh, those at the bank told her that they suspected she was being duped. She then decided to call back on the numbers from which she had been receiving the calls. However, her calls went unanswered. Realising that she had been duped, she approached the Andheri police station. The case was later transferred to the Agripada police station as her office is located there. An FIR was registered on Thursday against unidentified persons. Senior inspector of Agripada police station, S Agavane, said, “We are trying to track down the mobile numbers from which the woman received the calls. We suspect some insider involvement. Investigations are on.”
