Delhi: Four held for duping cancer patient of Rs 1.30 lakh in insurance fraud

New Delhi, Dec 9 (PTI) Four cyber fraudsters have been arrested for allegedly duping a cancer patient of Rs 1.30 lakh in an insurance fraud, police said on Tuesday.

The accused used to pose as officials of the Insurance Ombudsman and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) and allegedly targeted policyholders awaiting refunds or premium settlements and cheated them under the pretext of ‘processing charges’, they said.

“The accused had defrauded a cancer patient of Rs 1.30 lakh after impersonating regulatory officials. The complainant, KP Tomar, had purchased four health insurance policies in 2024 but could not continue payments due to medical expenses,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southwest) Amit Goel said.

While three refunds were processed, one policy remained unsettled. On July 5 this year, he received calls from individuals claiming to be from the Insurance Ombudsman and was induced to deposit Rs 83,000 and Rs 47,000 into two accounts for a ‘refund file preparation'.

The callers later demanded a fictitious Rs 12 lakh RBI bond, prompting him to realise the fraud. Following this, he filed a complaint and case was registered in a southwest Delhi police station.

Police analysed technical details and followed the money trail, tracing the funds through two accounts before they were diverted into a beneficiary account belonging to Devender Kumar, the police said.

Devender was arrested and allegedly confessed to using bank accounts of his wife Simran and sister-in-law Manpreet Kaur to receive the cheated money, which he then routed to his associate Arun Kumar after keeping a commission.

Raids in Seelampur led to Arun’s arrest. He allegedly admitted to posing as an IRDAI representative and making fraudulent calls using customer data misused by Devender, who worked in an insurance-related firm, they said.

The police said four mobile phones and a debit card used were recovered.

The arrested accused are Devender Kumar, Arun Kumar, Simran and Manpreet Kaur. Further investigation is underway, they added. PTI SSJ SSJ NB NB