Chennai: The police have launched a hunt for a 35-year-old staff of a famous jewellery firm who allegedly escaped with around Rs 60 lakh worth of gold and diamond jewellery from one of their outlets in Mylapore. The Mylapore police have registered a case based on a complaint from the manager of the showroom, Mr Ravikumar.
Police sources said the employee, identified as Prakash, was employed as a goldsmith with the firm for the past 10 years.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that Prakash who was assigned the job of melting old gold, had stealthily stolen gold and diamond jewellery in the past five years.
While the jewellery firm was left in the lurch about the missing jewellery during internal audits, the needle of suspicion pointed to Prakash after he went absconding since Saturday.
He was also entrusted with the job of handing over the raw gold and diamond to several designers across the city.
On Saturday, he went to hand over the gold and diamond jewels to a designer in Sowcarpet after which he went absconding, police sources said.
Efforts to reach his mobile also went futile, the police said.
In spite of the jewellery firm having CCTVs fixed throughout its premises, Prakash managed to carry out his phased stealing.
This was because he was in the know of spots that were not covered by the CCTV, a police officer said.
The Mylapore police are investigating.
