In at least seven out of 17 cases of fraud disguised as investments in insurance policies, the apprehended suspects were found to be former employees of various insurance companies, from where they stole records of insured people upon leaving their jobs. The Cyber Cell of the Chandigarh Police has also concluded that many times fraudsters managed to gain the confidence of insurance policyholders and did not reveal their true identity in person. One of the recently arrested individuals, Tarun Sharma, 34, from Ghaziabad, had stolen the confidential insurance records of a retired Chandigarh police inspector, Prem Lal, when he left his company in Noida in 2019, according to the police. Prem Lal was allegedly cheated of Rs 60 lakh by Sharma. So far, the Cyber Cell has received at least eight complaints related to insurance frauds in which people lost at least Rs 20 lakh in the last nine months in Chandigarh. These complaints are under investigation, and the police are trying to establish the money trail through bank accounts in which victims deposited the cash. "This particular crime is proliferating in the NCR region, where fraudsters procure code numbers under the pretext of representing many insurance firms that actually do not exist. Whenever fraudsters make calls, the victims presume they are receiving genuine calls from their insurance companies. In a few cases, the mastermind accused employ people to make frequent calls and to open bank accounts using their identity proofs," a source in the Cyber Cell said. The arrested suspects were found to be well-versed in the insurance business, the source added. In April, two individuals, Deepak Chandra and Raja Kumar, were arrested in Delhi for cheating a retired air force master warrant officer of Rs 99,880 by alluring him with the claim that his group insurance scheme (GIS) of around Rs 4.75 lakh had matured. The investigation further revealed that the suspects obtained the data of retired persons, including senior citizens, from the website Justdial and falsely claimed to the victims over the phone that they had their GIS money and provident funds and the authority to release them. "In almost all cases related to insurance fraud, we found that the accused were directly or indirectly linked with insurance firms, from which they procured the records of victims. They did not randomly cheat policyholders. These criminals strike once a year and primarily target wealthy individuals, mostly retired defense personnel and government employees. In some cases, we found that the accused had purchased the records of insurance policyholders from former employees of insurance firms," DSP (Cyber) A Venkatesh said. In July 2022, Faisal Hussain, who had worked in an insurance firm, was arrested for cheating Malkit Singh by falsely claiming to update the latter's HDFC life insurance policy.
