Mumbai Crime: Insurance cos insiders aiding con gangs, says Police

While probing incidents of imposters cheating policyholders the cyber crime units in Mumbai and Mira Bhayandar have learned that there has been a huge amount of data leaks from insurance firms While cyber cops have arrested a few former employees of insurance companies for their involvement in the racket they suspect the involvement of existing ones tooThe cyber units of Mira BhayandarVasai Virar MBVV police and the Mumbai police have registered four such cases in just a month Both the police have so far arrested seven people in connection with three of the four cases According to the cops fraudsters are calling up people posing as insurance agents and duping them on the pretext of renewing or upgrading their policiesAlso Read Cyber crime cases in Mumbai rise by more than 63 per cent in 2022 compared to 2021 PoliceThe casesThe recent arrest was made by Kherwadi police On Saturday they took custody of four accused from their MBVV counterparts The four men had allegedly duped a 56yearold Bandra East resident of Rs 112 lakh by offering to help stop the autodebit facility The accused called the victim and told him that his life insurance policy has matured but the next premium will be deducted anyway cops told midday They told the man that he has to make a payment of Rs 5575 to stop the autodebit facility and sent them a QR code to scan for the payment Later they stole Rs 112 lakh from his bank account said the copsMumbai cyber cops with the debitcredit cards cash and mobile phones seized from the accusedRealising that he had been duped the man lodged a complaint at the Kherwadi police station on January 10 During their investigation the Kherwadi cops learnt that three of the four accused in the case were arrested by MBVV cops a couple of weeks back for duping someone else They took the transit custody of Salim Akbar Siddique 24 Chand Vakil Ahmad 26 Aftab Shaikh 26 from the MBVV cops and arrested the fourth accusedShahrukh Shaikh 26 Kherwadi cops said they produced the four men in court that remanded them in police custodyOn January 23 the eastern cyber unit had busted another gang involved in the same scam and arrested three men for cheating a Ghatkoparbased senior citizen of Rs 439 crore Last year the victim owner of a dry fruits shop received multiple messages from an unknown number claiming to be an employee of the company from where he had bought his policy The accused offered him a profit of Rs 771 crore on his insurance policy if he surrendered it before maturity In the process the victim lost R439 crore and filed a complaint with the eastern cyber unit last yearUnder the guidance of Deputy Commissioner of Police Balsingh Rajput Cyber senior inspector SS Sahastrabuddhersquos eastern cyber unit and their team including Inspector Jagannath More began the probe and caught three men from Noida and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh The accused were identified as Sandeep Kumar Laltapratap Ravikumar Saroj Singh and Anujkumara Saha Ravikumar believed to be the mastermind of the gang had worked in several call centres of insurance firms in Noida before starting his own call centre Earlier the MBVV cyber unit had busted an interstate gang which had cheated 40 people of R11 lakh across the countryThe data leakPolice said that the employees who quit insurance companies stole data of the policyholders and passed it on to the fraudsters in exchange of monetary benefits while some used the data to cheat people on their own Police said they will soon hold a meeting with the representatives of the insurance companies to discuss how such data can be secured ldquoThe policyholders fall prey to these fraudsters easily because they have all their personal and financial detailsrdquo an officer who is part of the investigations told middayldquoWe have learnt about the data leakage and are conducting inquiries into the matter During the investigation we have found that scammers are mainly targeting senior citizens We request all policyholders not to entertain thirdparty calls In case of any such call they should contact the nearest branch of the insurance firms and must not open any kind of links or make online payment If anyone suspects a fraud she should immediately contact the nearest police station or call the cyber helpline number 1930rdquo said DCP RajputldquoThe data leak would not have been possible without an inside employee Work from home during the pandemic caused most of the data leaks In office insurance companies monitor their employeesrsquo systems which didnrsquot happen during remote workrdquo said a development officer of a prominent insurance company requesting anonymityRs 112 lakhAmount a Kherwadi man lost to one such scammer