The accused misused the facility offered by government and private insurance firms wherein customers could buy two-wheeler and private car policies by applying either on their website or through online marketplaces.

“They would enter commercial vehicle’s registration number, but describe it as two-wheeler in the column for ‘type of the vehicle’,” said an official.

The gang wooed customers by charging only about Rs 16,000 as annual premium, a steep discount from the actual premium that ranges between Rs 20,000 and Rs 40,000 for commercial vehicles. “They would have paid only about Rs 1,000 for the two-wheeler, and thus made about Rs 15,000 for each policy,” the official said.

The fraud came to light after United India Insurance came across fake policies and approached Commissioner Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal.

The cybercrime wing of the Central Crime Branch (CCB) registered a case and the accused were traced to Tirunvelveli and secured.

The police seized gold jewels weighing about 1.06 kg, several property documents, Rs 9.5 lakh in cash, a car, phones and laptops.

The main accused was identified as Mariappan (40), a BCom graduate who worked with insurance firms till 2016 before starting an office in Tirunelveli. His employee, M Sumathi (29), forged the policies, and Anand Senthurapandi (40) worked as his agent. Mariappan got his customers through Senthil Kumar Sengamalam (47), a registered insurance agent, and his subordinates Ansar Ali (43) and Jain Alavudin (40) of Pudukkottai.

The gang admitted to have cheated about 300 persons in four years, but the police suspect that the number could be much more and that names of other insurance firms could have also been misused.