Man cons bank of Rs 3.77 cr with fake gold, dummy customers

A 43-year-old man working as a gold valuator in public sector Indian Bank was arrested for allegedly cheating it of Rs 3.77 crore on the pretext of inspecting gold received from customers, police said on Sunday.

An official said Ramaswamy Nadar, a resident of Antop Hill here, was working in the gold loan department of Indian Bank's Dharavi branch for the part two years, besides running a jewellery shop.

"When the bank recently decided to liquidate some of its assets and opened lockers holding gold items in 77 packets, they found the gold to be fake. The bank immediately lodged a complaint with Dharavi police station," the official said.

The probe zeroed in on Nadar who, after initially denying any role in the scam, confessed that he had purchased fake jewellery from Dadar and had set up 12 dummy customers to cheat the bank, said Senior Inspector Suresh Patil of Dharavi police.

"Nadar's job was to issue value certificate to those opting for a gold loan. He used documents like PAN and Aadhaar cards to show 12 of his accomplices as customers. These customers then deposited fake gold with the bank and Nadar fraudulently gave them value certificates," Patil said.

An amount of Rs 3.77 crore was given as loan against gold to these customers, and this money was siphoned off by Nadar after giving the dummy customers a small sum, police sources said.

"He has purchased property, cars and motorcycles with the amount. The process to recover the money is underway. We have charged him under section 420 (cheating) of the IPC and hunt is on for the 12 people who helped him in the scam," Patil said.