Gang cheating army veterans in insurance fraud busted

New Delhi, Sep 5 (IANS) The Delhi Police have arrested a gang of four economic offenders allegedly involved in an insurance fraud case targetting veteran army officials.

The group was cheating the veterans in the name of facilitating release of outstanding insurance of maturities and bonus. The fraudsters were demanding money from their targetted persons.

According to the police, on target were as many as 54 retired army officers, of which, 13 allegedly fell prey to the fraudsters and together coughed crores of rupees.

Four arrested have been identified as Raj Rajput (36), Prabhat Kumar (33), Ram Naresh (52) and Ram Sagar (28). The group was involved in various other cases of frauds and have cheated people in several states, Delhi police said.

"Fraudsters were calling up veterans for release of some monetary benefits to them from AGIF (Army Group Insurance Fund). They made telephone calls to the pensioners; next of kin by promising them a large sum of money in the range of Rs 3-4 lakh and, in turn, demanded very small amounts of Rs 30,000-40,000 in advance in the name of processing fees for releasing the funds," Additional Commissioner of Police (Economic Offences Wing), R.K. Singh.

Singh further added, "One of the victims Colonel G.M. Khan from Army Service Corps paid Rs 1.27 crore to these fraudsters from his account till date. Other retired army officers were also targetted by the alleged persons and 12 more officers deposited varying amounts in the bank accounts as per the instructions of these cheats."

Police said that more than 50 bank accounts were analysed apart from verification of all the available addresses of the account holders and the phone numbers used by the economic offenders.

"The investigation has revealed that the bank accounts in which the amounts of the victims were credited were opened by accused Ram Naresh and Ram Sagar in the names of various firms on rented addresses. Owners of the properties had no clues about these offenders. The cheated amounts were withdrawn in cash immediately either through ATMs or cheques. Analysis of bank accounts revealed that accused Prabhat Kumar was withdrawing cash through self cheques," Singh added.

The Delhi Police had registered a case under sections 420, 120-B of India Penal Code on September 17, 2019 and were in search of these fraudsters.