The cyber crime unit of Odisha Crime Branch has arrested eight cyber criminals, including two women, from Uttar Pradesh and Delhi for duping gullible victims of their hard-earned money on the pretext of upgrading insurance policies and offering loans, said Shefeen Ahamed K., IGP (Crime Branch), here on Friday.
Separate teams of Crime Branch apprehended the accused persons from different places in Delhi and Fatehpur and Mau districts in Uttar Pradesh in connection with a case registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by a person named Dillip Kumar Jalan from Bhubaneswar.
Jalan in his complaint alleged that the cyber fraudsters had duped him of more than Rs 76.15 lakh by offering to upgrade insurance policy in July this year.
“The complainant’s wife had an HDFC life insurance policy with maturity amount of Rs. 20 lakh. In the beginning of July, unidentified individuals contacted him from different mobile numbers to upgrade the policy. One such offer was to upgrade the existing Rs 20 lakh policy to Rs 2.75 crore and facilitate an early release. He was convinced by the callers to deposit different amounts in four separate accounts,” Ahamed said.
Jalan deposited Rs 76,15,955 into four separate bank accounts in instalments between July 5 and September 28.
During investigation, the police found that the prime accused, identified as Raghu Anand and Bhim, had prior working experience in the fields of insurance and loan. Another accused, Rupali Gupta, also used to work in the financial sector.
“Bhim used to collect information regarding policy holders or those seeking loans from various sources. These three operated like a call centre and contacted those persons. Using that experience, they allured the complainant by saying that his wife’s insurance policy can be upgraded to Rs 2.75 crores by paying some charges,” the IGP said.
The accused trio later transferred the amount into the bank account of accused Bhanu Pratap Yadav. Subsequently, Raghu and Bhim withdrew the money from various ATMs.
The crime branch has also arrested two elderly persons, whose accounts were shared with Jalan for the deposit of the amount.
The accused have been sent to 14-day judicial custody.
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