Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Bhubaneswar has arrested one accused Bijay Bharadwaj from Etah in Uttar Pradesh.
The EOW arrested Bharadwaj for his involvement in the EOW PS Case No.02 dated 28.02.2022 U/s 419/420/465/467/468/471/170/120-B IPC r.w. Sec.66 of IT Act, 2000. After arrest, he was produced before the CJM, Etah, UP on 09.11.2022 and was brought to Bhubaneswar on the strength of five days transit remand. He will be produced before the JMFC, Barbil tomorrow i.e. on 12.11.2022.
The above-referred case has been registered on the basis of a complaint filed by one Pramod Kumar Rout of Joda in Keonjhar district on the allegation of cheating to him to the tune of more than Rs 2.35 Crores by Bijay Bharadwaj and others on the pretext of paying him Rs 3 cores from the Government of India, under Pradhan Mantri Rahat Kosh Yojona against his Insurance Policy with Max New York Life, using the forged & manipulated documents.
Investigation of the case revealed that complainant, Pramod Kumar Rout is holding one policy in Max New York Life Insurance Company since March-2012. During the month of October 2019, he received a call from a person who identified himself as A.K.Walia, Fund Releasing Head, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India and informed him that his above-mentioned Insurance policy has been selected under “Pradhan Mantri Rahat Kosh Yojona” of Govt. of India and that the Govt. of India will release an amount of Rs.3 cores in his account.
Subsequent to that the complainant received one letter in his mobile through WhatsApp, which was issued under the signature of one Suresh Mathur, HOD (Intermediaries) Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India (IRDA), wherein it was mentioned“…the authority request you to pay dues and receive your fund of Rs 1,56,36,500 within next 4 hours”. Along with the above letter, he also received some other communications/photographs in his WhatsApp.
Investigation of the case also revealed that when the complainant did not respond to the above letter and remained silent for some days, a series of calls were received by him from different persons using different mobile numbers, who identified themselves as employees in the office of A.K. Walia, who induced/ persuaded the complainant to transfer cash through RTGS and provided several bank account numbers. Being persuaded, the complainant during the period from 19.11.2019 to 04.02.2021 had transferred around Rs 2.35 crores in installments. However, even after the expiry of the expected time, when no amount was received by the complainant, he doubted their activities and on his contact, he found all the mobile numbers (from which he had received calls) to have been switched off.
Complainant also received many letters on WhatsApp purportedly issued by Ministry of Finance, RBI, Income Tax Department, and images of two bank Demand Drafts in favour of complainant amounting to Rs 1,27,73,000 and Rs 70,81,800. All these letters/ documents were found to be fake and forged.
During investigation it was found that there is no such person like Walia rather the present accused and his accomplices have cheated the complainant by impersonating them as high level officials of Govt. of India, Finance Dept., IRDA, RBI and Income Tax. It was found that the accused is one of the members of the gang which is involved in many such cases in various States. Out of the fraud amount of Rs 2.35 Cr., an amount of about Rs 79 Lakhs has been remitted to the account of the present accused Bijay Bharadwaj who has misappropriated the same.
Earlier, one accused namely Himanshu Bhandari has been arrested and forwarded in the case. Investigation of the case is continuing. Efforts are on to identify/arrest other members of the gang.
Ms Kalinga