HDFC Life ex-manager arrested for fraud

A former manager with HDFC Life is among two persons arrested for allegedly cheating hundreds of people across the country on the pretext of selling them insurance policies and hard-to-believe tour packages.

The police on Sunday said they recovered 132 cheques worth crores of rupees from the suspects, which they had reportedly collected from the victims. Rajasthan Police recently registered eight criminal cases in this connection at Jaipur. The help of the Delhi Police’s Crime Branch was subsequently sought to trace the suspects.

During initial probe, the Crime Branch learnt that the fraudsters would promise insurance policy revival schemes for those whose policies had expired. They would also promise tour packages at attractive rates. The victims were asked to send cheques in different names via courier.

“We learnt that the address given for receiving the couriers was of Bhikaji Kama Place, but the accused were operating from Laxmi Nagar, where they had set up a call centre. The accused—Asif Kamal and Kuldeep Kumar—were apprehended from the call centre,” said the police on Sunday.

Asif Kamal had worked with HDFC Life as a manager, and had reportedly procured the dates of lapsed policies of HDFC. “He would target these policy-holders in the name of reviving their policies, besides offering attractive tour packages. They would then direct the victims to courier cheques in different names,” said the police. The call centre had employed several girls as telecallers. “They would target people from states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. They looked out for people whose insurance policies had lapsed,” said the police.

To receive the couriers containing the cheques, they had opened an office near Bhikaji Kama Place. It was manned by a peon who would collect the cheques and hand them over to the suspects at some other location in the city. The peon was unaware of the fraud, said the police.