NEW DELHI– A new insurance scam has rocked Delhi, leaving over 5,000 vehicle owners with counterfeit policies and a leading insurance firm grappling with significant financial losses. This scheme exploited online portals, manipulating policy details to issue invalid coverage, primarily impacting three and four-wheeled vehicles.
The Unraveling of a Web of Deceit
The intricate fraud began to surface when the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) initiated claim notices directed at the unsuspecting insurance provider. This triggered an internal investigation that exposed the vast scale of the deception. It was discovered that a staggering 80,014 fraudulent policies had been issued between 2022 and 2023. Of these, 5,613 were specifically traced to Delhi, highlighting a concentrated effort within the capital. A critical finding revealed that out of this massive pool of fake policies, only a mere 14 possessed legitimate customer contact details, suggesting a deliberate effort to obscure the true beneficiaries and perpetrators of the scheme.
Modus Operandi: Exploiting Digital Loopholes
The culprits behind this scam leveraged the insurance company’s online portals. Their method involved a critical manipulation: issuing policies for three-wheelers and four-wheelers while charging premiums equivalent to those for two-wheelers. This disparity in cost served as a key indicator of the fraudulent nature of the policies. Further investigation uncovered that the fraudsters meticulously altered customer data, vehicle classifications, and crucial contact information. Fake email addresses and phone numbers, suspected to belong directly to the accused, were frequently used, creating a digital smokescreen to evade detection.
Financial Fallout and Law Enforcement Action
The repercussions for the insurance company have been severe, with substantial financial losses attributed to the extensive fraud. The nature of the scam, involving the issuance of thousands of invalid policies, means the firm bore the risk for policies for which it received inadequate premiums. In response to the grave findings, a formal case has been registered with the Delhi Police crime branch, initiating a comprehensive law enforcement investigation to arrest those responsible and dismantle the network behind the scam.
The Digital Trail: Unmasking the Transactional Patterns
The findings of this fraud, and one that provides valuable leads for investigators, is the transactional pattern. A substantial majority—74%—of these fraudulent policies were procured through online transactions. Payment methods such as Unified Payments Interface (UPI), net banking, and credit cards were predominantly used. Crucially, the funds from these illicit transactions were indeed credited to the insurance company’s official account by the accused, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of the financial systems and a deliberate intention to mimic legitimate transactions while subverting the underlying policy values.