Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction and this time to corroborate the age-old adage, dead have come alive to grab Rs 1.18 crore insurance death claim sum in Odisha

The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch busted a major insurance fraud with an agent of Life Insurance Corporation of India defrauding Rs 1.18 crore by way of policy claims against dead persons.

An agent identified as Kabiraj Behera pocketed insurance claims from Khordha branch of LIC. The modus operandi of the accused was simple. Furnishing fraudulent records and documents, Behera had managed to register policies against four individuals who were no more at the time of the policy registration. By way of fraudulent records, he reflected the dead as alive. Later, he pocketed the insured sum one after the other by furnishing the death certificates of insured persons, who were dead for a long time, said Deputy Inspector General of Police, Jai Narayan Pankaj.

Acting on a complaint by the branch manager of the LIC, he was arrested and was remanded to judicial custody. During the search of the accused person’s house, several incriminating documents pertaining to the death claims, voter identity Cards, ATM Cards, Bank Pass Books, Cheque Books, Adhaar Cards of the claimant nominees and correspondences made by LIC with those nominees have been seized. The documents containing the purported signatures of the ghost policyholders were also seized during the raid, the senior police official added.

Incidentally, Behera had been working as an insurance agent since 2003. He had managed to get ghost policyholders insured during 2013 to 2019. Adopting innovative poly, he had fraudulently managed to get as many as 23 LIC policies in the names of four dead persons, falsely showing them as alive.

He had produced fake death certificates of ‘dead’ insured persons to grab the insured sum after the policies had lasted for about three to five years. The EOW investigator found that the insurance policies were taken subsequent to the actual death of insured persons but the premium was being paid regularly.

It has been ascertained that the total amount of claims raised by the nominees of 23 policies through the accused was more than Rs. 1.81 crores of which Rs 1.18 crore was pocketed by him. Investigation is still underway to ascertain whether the accused had committed frauds of similar nature, DIG Pankaj concluded.