Mumbai Crime: Police book sales manager who insured the dead

The ingenuity of a fraudster's mind is limitless. Ask the Bhoiwada police, who recently booked a sales manager, for selling insurance policies in the name of dead people. The insurance company realised that some applicants were dead when he processed their documents for around Rs 10 to 20 lakh, during verification. Bhoiwada police are investigating how many such people were insured and how much money he and his accomplices made.

It was found that Rajesh Mandavkar, a resident of Kalyan, who worked as an agent with Reliance Nippo Life Insurance Ltd., had produced the papers of one Suresh Sushir (43), a resident of Malkapur, Buldhana, and got him insured for Rs 10 lakh on December 19, 2014. In December 2014, he also insured Prabhakar Ekshinge (40), residing at Karvir, Kolhapur, for R20 lakh, from the company's Dadar East branch.

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In January 2015, during the company's internal audit, a verification team processed the documents and raised a few queries regarding them. A fraud prevention team of the company, lead by investigation officers Vasudeo Tikam and Kishore Panchal reached Kolhapur and Buldhana, and verified all the documents and also met relatives of the insured.

Dead before applying
"To their shock they found the applicants were dead before the dates that the policies were applied on. Suresh Sushir, who applied for a policy on December 19, 2014, died due to tongue cancer on December 8, 2014. Prabhakar Ekshinge who applied for a policy on December 31, 2014, died on September 30 2014 after feeling giddy," said an officer from Reliance Nippo.

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The modus operandi for insuring the dead is part of the fraud, wherein the perpetrators convince the deceased's family members to part with some of the insurance money they may receive.

The company found their agent was a fraud and decided to probe Rajesh Mandavkar.

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"When we probed Mandavkar, he told us that it wasn't his sign on the documents that had his agent code number," said Ajinkya Gangurde, Legal Advisor, Reliance Nippo Life Insurance Ltd. "We had already reported this matter to Bhoiwada police, who subsequently started probing other members" he added.

Used another agent's code
On interrogating sales manager Vijay Paradkar, the police found that it was he who had insured the dead to achieve his business target with the help of two others, Ajay Rajput and Jayram. Mandavkar worked under Paradkar. The trio arranged documents and used Mandavkar's code number to apply for the policies. "We booked all three under IPC sections 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of document, security or will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document as genuine), 420 (Cheating)," said Dattatray Patil, Senior Inspector, Bhoiwada police.

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"The accused applied for policies for deceased persons which was revealed in the investigation. Now we are trying to find how many applications they processed with Mandavkar's code number or any other agent's number," Patil added.