Gurugram, Sep 13 (IANS): Three men were arrested for allegedly duping people online on the pretext of providing them life insurance policies in Gurugram, police said on Sunday.

The mastermind of the fraud was held in Faridabad on Friday while two of his associates were arrested from Ghaziabad and Delhi following information received by the cyber crime team.

Police have also recovered a mobile phone and Rs 22,500 from their possessions.

The kingpin has been identified as Dharmesh Thakur (38), a resident of Badarpur, Delhi. The others are Akash Verma of Ghaziabad and Deepak Sharma of Delhi.

"The accused had duped several people on the pretext of providing them life insurance policies by sending a link on their email accounts. They would ask gullible people to transfer money into their account in lieu of the policy and then vanish. The trap of fraud was spread across the country," said Subhash Boken, spokesperson of the Gurugram police.

"Recently, they had duped a man of Rs 2 lakh by using a similar method. The man who was cheated approached the police after which the trio was traced and arrested. The kingpin of the gang was doing fraud for one year," the official added.

During interrogation, Dharmesh revealed that they used to make phone calls and assured the people of false benefits on the pretext of life insurance.

"They used to send life insurance policies link via links on email or message with this the culprits gets the victims details and get money transferred from them. They received the money through HDFC Bank Gateway Razor-Pay. The accused keep changing their location to avoid police action," Boken said.

An FIR has been lodged against the accused men at the Cyber Crime police station under Indian Penal Code section 420 (fraud) and the Information Technology (IT) Act.