Bengaluru: The Koramangala police have arrested two people for cheating a goldsmith from Kerala to the tune of Rs 70 lakh. The arrested have been identified as Raj Sunil alias Sanjay (29), a middleman in jewellery business and his driver Nandakumar, 26, both residents of Bengaluru.
According to the police, Raj Sunil contacted a goldsmith, named Shimon based in Kerala, claiming that he was an agent who supplied jewellery to reputed gold showrooms in Bengaluru. He told Shimon that he had gold bars and wanted gold jewellery as per Kerala style. To win Shimon’s confidence, Sanjay clinched a deal by giving Shimon 250 gm gold bar in exchange for the same quantity of gold chains that was designed and delivered by Shimon.
Later Sanjay told Shimon that he could bring different designs of gold chains to Bengaluru of up to 10 kilograms, for which he had gold bars of equal weight. Shimon said he did not have that much of gold, but could make a good number of chains using the gold that he had. Shimon made 160 gold chains, totally weighing 2.386 kilograms, and brought it to Bengaluru to hand it over to Sanjay.
On May 2, Shimon reached Bengaluru with the gold jewellery and called up Sanjay, who invited him to an under-construction building in Koramangala 7th block. The accused told the victim that he was going to open a brand new showroom in Koramangala and at that location.
Sanjay took the 160 gold chains from Shimon and handed over some bars that were covered in paper. Sanjay told him that he will soon return after checking the purity of the gold at a friend’s jewellery shop nearby and fled along with his driver and two others, the police said. Shimon was shocked to learn that those were copper bars. He then rushed to Koramangala police station and lodged a complaint.
The police investigated collected leads with the help of other jewelers and through call records. They zeroed in on Raj Sunil and Nandakumar and arrested them. Gold chains worth Rs 70 lakh was recovered from the accused.
