Police also found that the gang had duped several other policyholders and used the money to buy gold biscuits
Cyber crime officials of Rachakonda police in Telangana arrested six people on May 8, including a relationship manager of a private insurance company, for diverting a non-resident Indian’s (NRI) insurance policy money into a fake bank account, reported the Times of India.
Police also found that the gang had duped several other policyholders and used the money to buy gold biscuits.
Rachakonda Commissioner of Police DS Chauhan, during a press conference, said relationship manager K Ranga Sai Harsha, graphics designer D Akshay Kumar, food delivery boy Mohammed Yaseen Ahmed, cab driver M Prasanth Sai and two others — V Achyuth and A Prakash Reddy — were arrested while police seized property worth Rs 60 lakh.
NRI K Kishore recently went to the insurance company’s office to update his address against his Unit Linked Insurance Policy (ULIP).
To his shock, the staffers informed him that Rs 76 lakh against the said policy had already been withdrawn on his request and that the “policy was closed before its maturity and the money was credited into K Kishore Kumar’s bank account” in South Indian Bank.
Kishore immediately lodged a complaint with the Cyber Crime police of Rachakonda.
As for the modus operandi, “Harsha being the the insider of the company” had access to the high value customers details. “He used to analyse the customers’ data and identify details of NRIs, senior citizens, customers who forgot that their policy matured as well as policy holders who died but their nominee was unaware about the policy. By selecting a policyholder, the accused (Harsha), by impersonating the victim, used to move a proposal to the company to update his email by sharing a new email ID, to be his registered email ID. Being the relationship manager, he himself used to get the communication and Harsha used to accept it,” the CP said.
After collecting the details of the bank account holder K Kishore Kumar in SIB, cyber crime inspector Narender Goud and his team of investigators collected the ID proofs, which were submitted at the time of opening.
They found that someone had fraudulently opened a bank account by using a forged PAN card, victim’s name and his original PAN number.
From this bank account, the investigators found that using the money credited into the fake account, shopping was done at a jewellery shop in Mehdipatnam, where fraudsters bought gold worth Rs 56 lakh.
“After going into the depth of the case, we found that someone sent an email to the insurance company, impersonating the victim requesting for closure of policy, before its scheduled maturity. Finally, we found that it was the relationship manager of the company Sai Harsha, who is behind the fraud,” Chauhan told reporters.
As for the modus operandi, “Harsha being the the insider of the company” had access to the high value customers details. “He used to analyse the customers’ data and identify details of NRIs, senior citizens, customers who forgot that their policy matured as well as policy holders who died but their nominee was unaware about the policy. By selecting a policyholder, the accused (Harsha), by impersonating the victim, used to move a proposal to the company to update his email by sharing a new email ID, to be his registered email ID. Being the relationship manager, he himself used to get the communication and Harsha used to accept it,” the CP said.
Once this became the registered email ID, after some time Harsha used to send an email to the insurance company requesting to withdraw the policy money before it matured.
In the same email, he used to share a concerned bank account number to which the money had to be credited. Prior to that the Harsha would open the bank account in the name of concerned policy holders, by submitting fraudulent PAN card, driving licence and by replacing the photograph with the impersonating accused like Yaseen Ahmed, Prashanth.
As per the requirement of Harsha, Akshay Kumar by using his software skills would create fabricated PAN cards, driving license and share it with Harsha.
From the accused, police seized 14 fake PAN cards, one fake Aadhaar card, one fake voter ID, 10 fake driving licences, 10 pass books, 376 grams of gold, an airgun, Rs 6 lakh cash and others.
Till now police found that the accused had illegally diverted Rs 4 crore and committed 19 offences since 2019. Rachakonda is a separate police commissionerate in Hyderabad.
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