NEW DELHI: Eight individuals have been arrested in connection with a fake police raid at an insurance office in the Laxmi Nagar area of East Delhi, during which the office owner was robbed, police said on Tuesday.
The incident took place on June 27, when Salman (31), the complainant and owner of an insurance office in Laxmi Nagar, reported that a day prior, four men impersonating members of the Special Staff Unit of the police forcibly entered his office.
The robbers seized his mobile phone and laptop, then kidnapped him in a car.
They assaulted him and extorted a sum of Rs 1.5 lakh, including Rs 70,000 that was transferred to an account, threatening to falsely implicate him in a fabricated insurance case, said officials.
Following an investigation, police apprehended five of the accused on Saturday while they were travelling in a car that had been used in the robbery on Noida Link Road. Three additional suspects were later arrested from various locations across Delhi.
Authorities also recovered another vehicle used in the crime, along with the stolen cash, laptop, and mobile phones, Deputy Commissioner of Police (east) Abhishek Dhania said. Those arrested include Hunny Kumar (31), Sunny Sharma (28), Ankit Jain (32), Vikram Singh (35), Rahul Gupta (27), Rahul Yadav (27), Anil Kant (33) and Jeetpal (42).
The DCP said the investigation revealed that Hunny Kumar, a former employee of the complainant, had personal grudges and provided inside information to Sunny Sharma. Sunny then enlisted his associates to carry out the robbery.
Further investigations revealed that Sunny Sharma had previously been arrested in a cyber fraud case in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, while
Ankit Jain had been involved in two prior criminal cases, the DCP further said.