Retired teacher from Naroda duped of Rs 35 lakh

AHMEDABAD: A 71-year-old retired teacher from the Naroda area of the city on Monday filed a complaint against unknown persons, who posed as officers of an insurance firm and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), for cheating him of Rs 35 lakh in garb of renewing his insurance policy which was dormant since 2011.
Pasha Patel, resident of Radhikapark society on Kathwada Road in Naroda, said in his FIR with Cybercrime police that he worked as a teacher in a government higher secondary school in Sagpur village in Talod taluka of Sabarkantha and retired in 2009.
In 2011, he had taken an insurance policy from an agent of a private firm named India First in Talod for 10 years. According to the policy norms, Patel was supposed to pay Rs 50,000 annually. Patel said that he had only paid one premium of Rs 50,000 and later he did not pay any premium.
Around ten years later on March 9, 2021, a man called up Patel and said that he was an officer of India First company and gave the details of Patel’s policy. As the man was aware about Patel’s policy premium and tenure, he was convinced with the man and enquired further.
Patel said that the man told him that he would renew the policy even as ten years were passed. For which, he told Patel to pay certain amount on regular intervals.
Following the man’s instructions, Patel ended up paying Rs 35 lakh between June 2, 2021 and January 4, 2022. However, as Patel did not get any amount of around Rs 40 lakh as promised by the insurance agent, he tried to contact the regulatory authorities.
The man, who was posing as insurance officer, gave the contact number of an RBI officer. When Patel contacted him, he too began demanding money from him.
Patel realized that he was being cheated after which he approached Cybercrime police and filed a complaint against unknown persons under the charges of impersonation, breach of trust, cheating and criminal conspiracy along with the charges of the Information Technology Act.