New Delhi, Aug 2: Three fraudsters in Delhi were held on Wednesday after the police found them involved in an insurance scam being perpetrated using stolen Aadhaar numbers.

The detained men have been identified as Ravi Adhikari, who owns a travel agency; Manish Bansal, who owns a mobile shop and his associated Hemant, a jobless insurance agent.

Bansal misused the Aadhaar numbers shared by customers at his shop to avail SIM cards. The mobile numbers obtained using the stolen Aadhaar IDs were used by the scamsters to lure their targets.

According to DCP (central) Mandeep Singh Randhawa, the accused accessed a database of customers interested in insurance schemes using the experience of Hemant.

The targets were called using the mobile numbers availed using fake Aadhaar IDs to avoid suspicion.

DCP Randhawa said the police was alerted by a complainant belonging to Chandi Mahal locality, claiming that he received a call from a person posing to be an insurance agent. The complainant was told that he will receive a bonus of Rs 68,000 in an insurance scheme if he agrees to pay Rs 28,000 as "security deposit".

Sensing a scam, the complainant approached the police. A team was formed under ACP Geetanjali Khandelwal to track down the accused.

Based on the bank account number which the accused gave the complainant to deposit Rs 28,000 as "security deposit", the police found it belonged to Adhikari, who owns a travel agency.

After reaching out to Adhikari, he revealed the modus operandi to the police and also revealed the whereabouts of Hemant and Bansal.

Adhikari, during interrogation, said he along with Hemant had launched a travel agency earlier in the year. Since it ran into losses, they decided to con people to improve their financial condition.

Bansal, the mobile shop owner, told police that he used to ask his customers buying SIM to fill two duplicate forms on the pretext of "technical glitches". The two forms were used to issue two mobile numbers. While one was given to the customer, the other was kept by them for calling their targets.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 02, 2018 04:40 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).