MCD agent, Delhi hosp technician among 5 arrested in Rs 500 crore insurance scam

Meerut: Five people, including a woman, were arrested on Saturday for allegedly forging medical and civic records to fraudulently claim insurance payouts by falsely declaring already deceased individuals as recently dead. The arrests are the latest development in the Rs 500 crore insurance scam that has spanned over seven years and involved multiple states.

The arrested include Prem Pal, an agent linked to Delhi MCD; Nawaz Ahmed, a technician from GB Pant Hospital, Delhi; Kalpana Singh, a CSB Bank employee; Ravinder Gupta, an insurance claim investigator; and Virender Kumar, a former guard and aspiring cricketer. The scam, first reported by TOI, has unravelled a network of fraud that spans multiple states and involves forged documents, insider collusion, and insurance manipulation.

In one instance, the gang secured Rs 70 lakh through three fraudulent policies for Trilok Kumar, a Delhi man who died of cancer in June 2024. After convincing Kumar's widow, Sapna, with promises of financial help, the gang procured his ID documents and purchased three policies in Sept 2024. They later submitted forged ECG reports, fake doctor seals, and a fabricated second death certificate claiming Kumar died of a heart attack at GB Pant Hospital in Dec 2024. Prem Pal, leveraging his MCD links, allegedly created a fake certificate for Rs 5,000.

Nawaz Ahmed, a hospital orderly, forged medical files and stole documents for Rs 17,000 in bribes. He and others inserted the fake file into hospital records. Sambhal ASP Anukriti Sharma said, "They faked ECGs, signatures and the death record to match the insurance date. It was a complete fabrication. They even forged doctors' signatures and official seals."

Ravindra Gupta was assigned the task by an outsourced agency to investigate the claim of one of the policies. Persuaded by alleged kingpin Shahrukh Khan, Gupta filed a false report, leading to Rs 20 lakh being credited to Sapna's account. Police had seized her debit card and cheque book during Shahrukh's arrest in Feb, so the funds remained untouched. Other claims were cancelled once the fraud was detected.

The scam was first uncovered on Jan 17, when Sambhal police intercepted a vehicle with Rs 11 lakh, 19 debit cards, and numerous documents. Six more were arrested by Feb 15 — including Shahrukh, Hirender Kumar, Roop Kishor, Prem Pal, Prem Singh and ASHA worker Neelam Devi. Seized items included 81 passbooks, 31 fake death certificates, and 18 forged bank stamps. The scam preyed on the poor and the sick, with some cases involving murder disguised as accidents to claim insurance.

The wider UP-based insurance racket emerged as a large-scale fraud involving forged medical records, fake death certificates, and inflated insurance claims — sometimes linked to murders staged as accidents. It began surfacing in 2024 in Sambhal and has since spread to at least 12 states, including Delhi, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. Initial investigations had estimated the scam's value at over Rs 100 crore, but fresh revelations, including the Trilok case, pushed the suspected fraud total higher. Enforcement Directorate is now probing links to multiple deaths and fraudulent claims, many targeting terminally ill patients or those already dead.

Trilok's case was uncovered from documents seized in Feb. The gang had already taken control of Sapna's phone number, passbooks and chequebook. Police said Virender Kumar, once a guard, began helping patients get appointments, which connected him to Nawaz. After meeting Shahrukh in 2022, Virender became a full-time member, approaching bereaved families and offering false promises of aid.

During Kumar's illness in early June 2024, his family had tried to admit him to GB Pant Hospital but were redirected. He later died, and Virender approached his widow. "We found out he had died, and that's when the gang reached out to his wife," said an officer. Kalpana, working as a business development officer, opened fake accounts using a lookalike of co-accused Hirender Kumar. She also tried to rope in Sapna with false insurance promises and received expensive gifts from Shahrukh to help meet her targets.