BENGALURU: The Vijayanagar police have arrested three persons who were allegedly cheating banks by pledging duplicate gold jewels and borrowing loans. The accused have been identified as Arun Raju Kanade (30), and Satyananda alias Satya and Dattatreya Bakale alias Yash, both aged 28.
Th police said Satyananda and another accused, Jayalakshmi, had gone to a nationalised bank on September 23 and said they need Rs 7.15 lakh loan and gave 235.6 g of gold jewels. However, the appraiser found out that the jewels had less than 9 per cent of gold.
The bank manager grew suspicious and enquired Satyananda, who said it belonged to Arun and left the bank. After checking the database of the bank, the manager found out that the accused had pledged duplicate gold in other branches of the bank and hence filed a police complaint.
Sourced from West Bengal
“Satyananda was arrested first. Based on his information, two others were arrested.It was revealed that Arun and Bakale sourced duplicate gold jewels with hallmarks on them from West Bengal and pledged them through those who had accounts in nationalised banks so that even if the bank staff found out that it was fake gold, they will not get caught. They used to convince innocent bank account holders that they would repay the EMI and lured them with a commission on the loan amount,”the police said.
“The investiggation so far has established that they have pledged around 15 kg duplicate gold in various banks in Bengaluru, Udupi, Gadag, Koppal, Hubbaali in Karnataka and also in Surat in Gujarat and have borrowed loans to the tune of several crores of rupees. We have recovered 1,475.640 g of duplicate gold from them and are further investigating,” the police added.