Rourkela, Jan 23: Raghunathpali police Saturday arrested four persons including a woman and her son on charge of defrauding Rs38 lakh by mortgaging fake gold in a bank.
The incident took place in Panposh Road branch of IDBI, the police said, adding about 2.525 kg of fake gold ornaments were seized from the bank.
The accused included Krishnakumari Apat and her son Ramchandra of Auto Colony under Brahmanitarang police limits, Bablu Sahoo of a slum in Panposh and bank’s gold valuer Nagendra Prasad Sahoo. The fake ornaments have been kept in a bank locker, DSP Tusharkanta Jena told the media.
According to police, the mother-son duo and Bablu applied for gold loan to the bank March 24, 2014 in the first phase. Bank’s authorised gold valuer had certified the gold brought by the accused and recommended to branch manager Manoj Kumar Pradhan to go ahead with processing of the loan. Soon after, loans were sanctioned to the three.
This encouraged trio who went on to apply for more loans by mortgaging fake ornaments.
Between Match 24, 2014 and December 9, 2014, the bank sanctioned Rs 10.70 lakh through Ramchandra’s two savings account, Rs 10 lakh to his mother and Rs7.80 lakh to Bablu. The accused kept on depositing the installments in time for the first several months. However, Ramchandra and his mother Krishna stopped paying their monthly installments after making payment of about Rs8 lakh. Similarly, Bablu also turned a defaulter after a few months.
Bank’s regional manager Sandeep Kumar Patnaik grew suspicious after the dues of the three, including the principal amount and interest, shot up to Rs 38 lakh. The mortgaged gold ornaments were found fake when Patnaik checked them with another goldsmith. The manager lodged a complaint with Raghunathpali police over the issue.
A case was registered and police arrested the four following an investigation.
In October 2015, a broker, in connivance with the bank manager, managed to bungle Rs4.5 crore from the Federal Bank here by mortgaging fake gold ornaments. Police arrested nine persons including the branch manager in the incident. PNN