Two individuals, Sartaj and Deepak Thakur, were arrested in Ghaziabad for their involvement in a massive insurance scam that deceived over 25,000 people across India, including 128 victims from the city, over the past year. The scam, which has a financial impact of over Rs 50 crore, involved the duo fabricating third-party insurance policies for various companies, including ICICI Lombard General Insurance, Magma HDI General Insurance, and others. The accused would collect premium payments from owners of commercial vehicles and lorries but would issue two-wheeler insurance policies instead, which are significantly cheaper.
The scam was uncovered after a complaint was filed by the vice president of ICICI Lombard General Insurance, Sanjay Thakur, on March 8. An investigation revealed that the accused had created fake insurance policies by misrepresenting commercial vehicles as two-wheelers. Four people were arrested on March 10, and Sartaj and Deepak were arrested later after their names were revealed by the gang.
The police believe that over one lakh people may have fallen prey to the scam over the last two years and are continuing to identify and reach out to more victims. The accused were booked under Section 318 (4) (cheating) of the BNS and relevant sections of the IT Act. A team has been formed to nab the mastermind, Rohit Kumar, and a woman, Priya, who is believed to have been involved in creating the fake insurance papers.
The police have recovered 84 counterfeit third-party insurance policies from the accused’s mobile phones and are contacting the companies whose policies were fabricated. The ADCP (crime & cyber) Piyush Kumar Singh said that the perpetrators took advantage of the fact that proprietors of aged commercial vehicles and trucks generally purchase only third-party coverage, which creates opportunities for manipulation when issuing low-value third-party policies. The police are working to prevent such scams in the future and to bring the perpetrators to justice.