Wanted conman held for duping people of Rs 2.5 Cr in Pune

New Delhi, Dec 19 The Crime Branch of Delhi Police have arrested a wanted conman, who along with his associates cheated approximately Rs 2.5 crore from the gullible public by promising them freebies and bonus on their LIC policies, an official said on Sunday.

According to the official, the accused's seven associates were earlier arrested by the police. The accused, identified as Sandeep Kumar Soni, carrying a bounty of Rs 25,000 on his head was arrested from Pune, Maharashtra.

Furnishing details about the case, DCP Manoj C. said in 2015, Executive Director, of LIC, New Delhi had filed a complaint, alleging that some culprits by impersonating as employees of LIC had duped people by offering lucrative benefits, i.e., freebies such as free credit card, mediclaim benefits of false claim like direct transfer of commission to the policyholders' account.

"The policy holders were lured to make payments by cash/cheque in favour of some private agencies/companies such as Beyond Yatra Dream Come Pvt. Ltd., Light India Club Pvt. Ltd., Value Add Securities/Da Vision loyalty addition/Davis club etc," the DCP said, adding, after receiving payment, the culprits stopped contacting policy holders, changed their mobile phones and thereby causing financial loss to customers.

On the said complaint, a case was registered and investigation of the case was taken up.

During the course of investigation, eight people were identified who were running a racket, and were targeting people of Delhi, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and MP and cheating them.

"They were using mobile numbers which were procured on Fake Id's and were getting cheques in their firms or companies such as 'Beyond Yatra' 'Dreams come Pvt Ltd', 'Value Add Securities' and ['Light India Club Pvt Ltd', etc.," the official said.

Despite several efforts, accused Sandeep could not be arrested and a non-bailable warrant was issued against him by the court concerned.

A police team was constituted which collected details about the accused Sandeep and they found that he was a permanent resident of Bihar. However, he left Bihar and disguised himself in Pune, Maharashtra. The team collected the factual and technical information and raided all the possible hideouts in Delhi and Bihar.

"On specific information received by the team that he might be living in Pune under disguised identity, the police team raided locations in Pune and arrested him accordingly," the official informed.

During interrogation, the accused Sandeep revealed that he along with his associates posed themselves as the officials of LIC and lured the victims to deposit money in different bank accounts opened on fake IDs on the pretext of offering incentive under their LIC policies.

He disclosed that he had opened offices and call centres in Mumbai, Maharashtra for cheating purposes under different names and firms. They called the victims to siphon off their hard-earned money by luring them on the pretext of higher bonuses and other freebies.

The police said that as per the investigation conducted so far, all the accused targetted people in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, etc., and managed to cheat approximately Rs 2.5 crore.

"Further investigation into the case is still on," the police added.

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