ELURU: In one of the largest banking scandals in the district in recent years, police unearthed a gold loan fraud at Bank of Baroda’s Jangareddigudem branch, and arrested the bank’s official gold appraiser for allegedly misappropriating pledged ornaments valued at Rs 10 crore.
Disclosing this at a press conference here on Friday, Eluru Superintendent of Police K Pratap Siva Kishore said the accused, Chalapaka Raju (40) of Velamapeta in Jangareddigudem, was arrested.
Following intensive searches, a special investigation team recovered 4.120 kg of stolen gold ornaments valued at Rs 5.71 crore, along with Rs 10 lakh in cash, bringing the total recovery to Rs 5.81 crore.
The institutional fraud came to light after the senior branch manager of the bank lodged a formal complaint.
Acting on the complaint, Jangareddigudem police registered Crime No. 198/2026 under Sections 318(4), 316(5), 336(3), and 305(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). A comprehensive probe was launched under the direct supervision of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Sushmitha R. A deep forensic audit of the bank’s vault exposed severe irregularities across 176 gold loan accounts.
Investigators revealed that Raju abused his position of trust to systematically siphon off gold ornaments.
Police recover 4.12 kg of gold stolen from BoB
To evade internal audit and daily verification, the accused replaced the genuine gold with imitation jewellery and worthless base metals, keeping both bank executives and the actual gold mortgagors completely in the dark. In total, the police estimated that 6.449 kg of gold was swindled through this modus operandi.
The investigation further established that Raju liquidated or re-pledged the stolen assets across multiple jewellery shops throughout Jangareddigudem. To conceal the paper trail, he executed these commercial transactions using his own name as well as the identities of his parents.
Police teams traced these transactions through documentary and financial evidence, leading to the recovery of 4.120 kg of gold from various jewellery shops where the items had been offloaded.
The SP said efforts are on to track down and recover the remaining 2.329 kg of missing gold. The police will seek formal custody of the accused to verify the possible involvement of bank insiders or external receivers of stolen property.
