Appraiser held on charges of stealing gold, cash, cheating

: A gold appraiser of a bank has been arrested on charges of stealing pledged jewels and cash and 11.5 kg of the precious metal and Rs ten lakh recovered from him in Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh, police said.

The man attached to the Andhra Bank branch in Yadamarri, 80 km from here was arrested on Wednesday following investigations into a complaint lodged by the authorities about missing gold jewels and Rs. 2.6 lakh cash, they said.

He had gained entry into the bank on October 13, a Sunday, by opening the doors using the duplicate keys he had earlier made and stole gold ornaments and Rs 2.6 lakh cash from the safe, police said.

After committing the crime, he had locked the bank's doors, shutters and its safe before leaving quietly.

The next morning the bank officials found the gold and cash missing with no sign of any break-in, police said.

Based on a complaint from the bank, police tracked the movements of the gold appraiser and arrested him.

During investigations, it also came to light that the appraiser had allegedly committed a fraud on the bank by pledging fake gold weighing about 7 kg and taking a total loan of Rs 1.3 crore by misusing customers' account numbers, police said.

He is suspected to have lost money in the share market and financial constraints drove him to commit the crime, police said.

A car, two bikes, a gold melting machine and 7 kg of fake gold were also recovered from him, police added.