Fake call centre selling car insurance busted
The Delhi Police on Monday busted a fake call centre operating in the Dwarka Mor area and arrested two of its key members involved in cheating people looking to purchase car insurance online.
The police said it recovered 18 mobile phones, two laptops containing data of several car owners which was used to dupe them, a fraud ATM card which was used for withdrawing the money, 1,240 pages of documents which had the data of car owners.
The two kingpins — Nihal Khan, alias Mayank, and Deepu — were arrested along with 10 girls, employed in the fake call centre running from a rented accommodation on the fourth floor of a building.
The police received an e-FIR on October 5 regarding a theft of Rs 12,000; the e-FIR was marked to ASI Sandeep. When Sandeep called the complainant to gather information, he learnt that in June when the complainant was searching for numbers of car insurance companies, he began receiving calls, offering him insurance at lower rates.
“He also received an email from mayank@policybazaarinfo.com, in which a person, claiming to be an employee of Policy Bazaar, shared his ID card and details related to his car with him. During this time, the same person called him several times,” the officer added.
However, from June 27, the same person started talking to him on WhatsApp regarding his policy and also asked for his old policy.
Later, Mayank shared the account details which bore the name of Policy Bazaar Co. Ltd as beneficiary name. The account was created in the Bank of Maharashtra.
The complainant was then asked to deposit Rs 12,000 in the provided account, which the complainant transferred on June 30.
“After that, they gave the complainant policy documents, but the complainant had some doubts in the details. However, when the complainant contacted the policy issuer, ie, Tata AIG Insurance Company, it said the policy was fake,” said DCP (North district) Raja Banthia. A case was registered in this regard, following which an intensive operation was conducted at various locations.
“After scanning several CCTV cameras, it came to light that a group of two males and 10 women had been using the fourth floor of a building in Sewak Park near Dwarka Mor Metro Station,” the DCP said.
Ten women aged 19 to 24 have been bound over following the issuance of a notice under Section 35(3) of the BNSS. During interrogation, the accused disclosed that they had cheated 50 other individuals.
“They further disclosed their modus operandi, explaining that they initially used the Work India App and online portals to hire staff. After hiring, they instructed the staff that they would receive data about car owners. The hired staff were then required to call these individuals and inquire if they were interested in car insurance. If the customer expressed interest, the staff would tell them that their senior officer would discuss further details,” the DCP stated.
The kingpins created four fake email IDs in the name of Policy Bazaar through an online portal. Using these, they sent false bank account details and fraudulent policy quotations at lower prices to customers seeking car insurance policies. If customers later discovered that their policies were fake, the accused would discard both the SIM cards and mobile phones to evade detection, the police said.
During further investigation, over 25 fake bank accounts were identified, and efforts to identify victims are ongoing.
“It was also revealed that they purchased these fake bank accounts (opened using false KYC and residential addresses) from unknown individuals who sold them for online payments. The identification of these account sellers is currently underway. The accused also obtained fake SIM cards from local vendors in Bihar and Jharkhand, luring them with high prices for the cards,” the officer added.
