Odisha Crime Branch Arrests 8 Persons From New Delhi & UP For Cyber Fraud

Bhubaneswar: The Cyber Crime unit of Odisha Crime Branch has arrested 8 persons from New Delhi and Uttar Pradesh for allegedly duping people on the plea of lucrative insurance policy and loan.

The Crime Branch arrested the 8 persons on the basis of investigation into the complaint of Dillip Kumar Jalan, a resident of Bhubaneswar, that he and his wife had become victims of insurance fraud of Rs 76,15,955.

As per the complaint, Dilip’s wife had an HDFC life insurance policy with maturity value of Rs 20 lakh. In July, several unidentified persons contacted him from different mobile phone numbers to upgrade the policy. One such offer was to upgrade the existing policy to Rs 2.75 crore and facilitate an early release.

Convinced by the callers, Dilip deposited Rs 76,15,955 in four separate bank accounts in SBI (2), Kotak Mahindra (1) and Axis Bank (1) between July 5 and September 28 as per their directions.

He deposited Rs 28.73 lakh in SBI account of Pramoda Bali, Rs 8.32 lakh in SBI account of Tej Kumar, Rs 27.54 lakh in Axis Bank account of Kavya Singh and Rs 11.56 lakh in Kotak Mahindra account of Asish Kumar.

The CB registered a case under IT Act and collected necessary information and digital evidence during investigation. It came to know that the accused persons are residing outside Odisha. Three teams of Cyber Crime unit proceeded to New Delhi and Fatehpur and Mau in UP and arrested the 8 persons who were part of a group of cyber fraudsters.

During the investigation, it came to light that the accused persons, Bhim, Raghu Anand and Rupali Gupta were earlier working in insurance and loan related fields. Bhim used to collect information regarding policy holders or those seeking loan from various sources. These three operated like a call centre and contacted those persons.

After siphoning off Rs 76,15,955 from Dilip, Raghu Anand, Rupali Gupta and Bhim transferred the money into bank accounts of Bhanu Pratap Yadav. Subsequently, Raghu Anand and Bhim, who are the main brain behind the crime, withdrew the money from various ATMs.

Besides the four persons, the Crime Branch arrested four others involved in the racker and forwarded them to
SDJM court in Bhubaneswar.