Mumbai Crime: Three held for attempting to scam LIC of Rs 2 cr

The trio, who was arrested on March 2 and 4 from Ahmednagar, have engineering diplomas

On April 21, 2015, Pramod Taksale, a 29-year-old resident of Omkar Colony, Ahmednagar, applied, via an agent, for two Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) policies worth R5 and R3 crore.

Along with the application, Dinesh attached certified income tax returns for three financial years, from 2012 to 2015. In his application, he claimed he received R38.85 lakh per year in income from his farm and R2.74 lakh from his mess hall.

On July 5, 2015, the LIC office decided to accept his application and sanctioned a policy for 35 years worth R2 crore and he was asked to pay R1.46 lakh as a premium for the first trimester. On March 14, 2017, a woman claiming to be Dinesh's mother Nandabai Taksale applied for a death claim at the LIC's Dadar branch, stating that her son had lost his life in a road accident on December 25, 2016. During the verification, LIC officials found that the documents attached by Dinesh while applying for the policy had been forged; he didn't own any farm or ever ran a mess. There was also a discrepancy in the documents attached to the death claim and suspicions surfaced that Dinesh was alive and well. Finally, LIC officials directed officials at the Dadar branch to register an offence.

On February 21, 2023, LIC's assistant administrative officer Omprakash Sahu submitted a complaint with the Shivaji Park cops against Dinesh and his mother Nandabai following which both were booked under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will etc), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document as genuine) and 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code, while a probe was initiated.

Manoj Patil, DCP (Zone 5), directed Satish Kasbe, senior inspector of Shivaji Park police station, to depute a dedicated team to find out the truth. Inspector Keshavkumar Kasar, Assistant Police Inspector Mangesh Jamdade and Police Sub Inspector Yogesh Rane led the investigation and eventually traced Dinesh to Ahmednagar. "During the initial investigation, it was known that Dinesh was alive. Our team launched the search operation and tracked him down. After interrogating him, we found two of his friends were also involved; they have been detained," said Patil. "After they were interrogated in detail, the plan hatched by them to usurp the insured amount was laid bare," he added.

Dinesh was arrested on March 2 while his friends, Anil Latke and Vijay Malwade were arrested two days later. The trio will remain in police custody till March 8. "The accused have engineering diplomas and are working in a private company. But due to their low income, they decided to do this. Trio even paid around R5 lakh as premium to show that Dinesh could pay for the policy. They invested their entire savings to pull this off, said an officer privy to investigation.

The plan

The arrested had initially planned to seek a policy worth R8 crore by showing forged income tax returns. But LIC approved a policy worth R2 crore. But to claim that, they were waiting to find an unclaimed dead body. In December 2016, they found a corpse lying in the Shreengora Rural Hospital, Ahmednagar. An elderly couple was brought to the hospital in front of doctors and the person was identified as Dinesh. When the documents were prepared, the body was disposed of by the trio.

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Next move

After getting the post-mortem note and other legal documents, the trio took a woman to LIC's Dadar office, claiming that Dinesh was dead. The trio believed as all the documents were clear, the claim would be settled and they would get the money easily. But being a short-term death claim, LIC officials launched their own investigation.

Patil told mid-day, "There are many unanswered questions. Who from the rural hospital helped the accused? Why weren't thorough document checks carried out? Who was the couple who appeared in the hospital? Who was the person whose body was disposed of by the accused? The investigation will reveal the entire plot."