Man held for securing ₹18L loan using fake gold

Pune: The Ranjangaon MIDC police on Tuesday arrested a farmer from Ahilyanagar district for duping a private bank of Rs 18 lakh by securing loans against fake gold jewellery.“The accused, Laxman Vir, had given fake gold jewellery to his relatives and their friends. They pledged the jewellery with the bank and obtained loans against it between Jan and March this year,” senior inspector Mahadev Waghmode of the Ranjangaon MIDC police told TOI.According to the police, the fraud surfaced during an internal audit conducted by the bank. An external auditor appointed by the bank examined several gold loan accounts and discovered that the jewellery pledged in at least 10 cases was fake. Following the findings, the bank official traced the borrowers and found that all of them were linked to Vir.“The bank official then traced those people and found that they were connected to the accused, Vir. He had given them the jewellery to pledge with the bank. However, they did not know that the jewellery was fake,” Waghmode said.Police said a case has been registered not only against the nine people who obtained the loans, but also against the bank’s gold valuator for allegedly failing to properly verify the purity of the ornaments before approving the loans.Waghmode said Vir was arrested and later confessed during questioning. “He revealed that he had procured the fake gold jewellery from an acquaintance to obtain the loans,” Waghmode said.The officer added that investigations are continuing to verify the valuator’s role in the fraud. “We have registered a case against the valuator as well as the persons who obtained the loans from the bank. Investigations are on,” he said.