A 61-year-old retired BMC official has been duped of Rs 21 lakh by online fraudsters on the pretext of giving abetter insurance policy to get him better maturity benefits.
The fraudsters posed as government officials and one of them even claimed to be an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) official to gain the victim's trust.
According to the police, the victim in February 2013 had taken a life insurance policy and had paid a premium for one year. Later when the victim did not like the policy, he discontinued it. On August 17, the victim received a phone call from a woman claiming to be Aditi Saxena who informed him about his insurance policy details.
Saxena then informed the victim that on making payment of four installments of the policy, the policy will become active and he would be eligible for a maturity benefit of Rs 25.48 lakh.
"Saxena told him that scanning of lapsed policies is done by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) and the policies become active after paying four installments. The fraudsters then induced him to keep making payments in different bank accounts under the pretext of various charges and processes," said a police officer.
Another fraudster who identified himself as GS Thakur, claiming to be general manager at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) asked the victim to make more payments to get policy benefits on maturity."
"The victim in his complaint had stated that another person who identified himself as GL Nanda, claimed to be a 1984 batch (IAS) official posted at NPCI and informed him that he had received the victim's file from the IRDA office. In order to make their con look genuine, they even shared a fake stamped NPCI letterhead having policy details with the victim," the officer said.
The victim paid Rs 21 lakh to the fraudsters and when the accused persons kept demanding more money, the victim became suspicious and made enquiries about NPCI and learnt that they have an office at Goregaon. When the victim showed the letterheads and documents shared with him by the accused persons, the NPCI officials informed him that those were fake.
The victim then approached Manpada police in Thane and got a case registered under sections 34 (common intention), 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC and section 66D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the IT Act.
