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BHUBANESWAR: An insurance fraud racket, operating in New Delhi, Odisha and Bihar, has been busted with the arrest of three persons from the National Capital by the Odisha Crime Branch. They were produced in a court here on Monday.The accused have been identified as Dilip Kumar Nathasharma of Patkura in Kendrapara district, who was staying in Delhi’s Dwarka area, Ramprakash Sharma of Janakpuri in New Delhi and Priyank Kumar Verma of Uttam Nagar in New Delhi. Police also seized four mobile phones, seven cheque books and four pass books of different banks, four PAN cards and `1.1 lakh cash from them.

On July 30, Sanjeeb Kumar Mohanty of Khandagiri had lodged a complaint with the Cyber police station stating that the accused who identified themselves as board members and manager of a private life insurance company, conned him by offering a life insurance scheme and extraordinary returns and duped him of `21.4 lakh. Subsequently, a team of State Crime Branch officials went to New Delhi for investigation.

According to police, Dilip and Priyank were earlier working as agents with the Corporate Services Agency for the company and they had access to the details of customers. They used to purchase customers’ database from different agencies and call them by identifying themselves as the board members and manager of the insurance company. Later, they formed a gang and created bank accounts in the name of fake companies. The customers used to transfer the money via NEFT or RTGS and cheated several customers in New Delhi, Odisha and Bihar, police said.

“Dilip and Priyank had called the complainant by using different phone numbers. While, Ramprakash had created the bank account in the name of HDFT Value Services and Capital Tax Investment Services to receive the money,” Crime Branch ADG Santosh Upadhyay told The Express. The Crime Branch had registered a case on July 30.