Bhubaneswar: Sleuths of the state Crime Branch Friday arrested three cyber criminals including two ex-employees of an insurance company from New Delhi for duping an investor of around Rs 22 lakh on the pretext of availing him a high maturity insurance plan.
The trio, including a non-resident Odia, bilked Sanjeeb Kumar Mohanty, a resident of Baramunda under Khandagiri police limits, by pretending to be the officials of Kotak Life Insurance. It may be mentioned here that two of the accused were former employees at the Kotak Life Insurance.
Sources said the arrested have cheated several such depositors from Odisha, Bihar and Delhi.
One of the accused from Odisha was identified as Dilip Kumar Natha Sharma of Atabuha village under Patkura police limits in Kendrapara.
The other two accused were identified as Ram Prakash Sharma of Kailash Nagar under Kotwali police limits at Hathras district in Uttar Pradesh and Priyank Kumar Verma alias Jatin Khurana of Mohalla Dulli in Firozabad area of Uttar Pradesh. While Ram was staying at Krishna Park under Janakpur police limits, Priyank was residing at Gulav Bagh near Navada railway station under Uttam Nagar police limits in New Delhi.
According to sources, Sanjeeb Kumar Mohanty had lodged a complaint with the Cyber police station of Crime Branch at Cuttack. He mentioned in his complaint that the conmen contacted him by pretending to be employees of the Kotak Life Insurance and persuaded him to make an insurance policy with high maturity amount. Lured into this, Mohanty deposited Rs 21, 40,000 in two bank accounts registered under different names from that of the insurance company. Both these accounts were in the name of Ram Prakash Sharma.
During the course of investigation, the sleuths found that Dilip and Priyank, who were ex-agents in the corporate agency of Kotak Life Insurance, used to have access to the details of the customers of the insurance company. They had also purchased customer details from various other insurance agencies.
Later, they would contact the victims over phone with different mobile numbers, email and other media. They also had several other employees tasked to create bank accounts with fake details.
The trio was produced before the SDJM court in Bhubaneswar Monday.
The police have seized cash worth Rs 1.10 lakh, four pass books of different banks, four PAN cards, seven cheque books of different banks and four mobile phones from the accused.