Gang dupes Ggm trader of ₹2.5cr, 580gm of gold by selling fake coins

Four members of an interstate gang were arrested for duping people by selling them fake gold coins, police said on Thursday

Four members of an interstate gang were arrested for duping people by selling them fake gold coins, police said on Thursday.

The arrested suspects in police custody. (HT)

Police identified the suspects as Solanki Prabhubhai Gulshanbhai alias Kalpesh, 45, Manish Kamlesh Shah, 32, and Ishwar Marwadi, 33, all residents of Vadodara in Gujarat and Pankaj Sharma, 31, of Nangloi, Delhi.

Police said the arrests come after they duped a 50-year-old businessman from Sushant Lok-I of ₹2.49 crore cash and 583 grams of gold worth ₹84 lakh on March 2. They gave the victim five kilograms of gold-plated brass coins by terming them “antique gold coins” recovered from fields during an excavation in Madhya Pradesh.

The victim filed a complaint on April 1 after he realized that the coins were fake. An FIR was registered against the suspects under sections 318 (2) (cheating), 318(4) (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of Bharatiya Nyaya Saanhita at Sushant Lok police station, said police.

Police added that the victim kept the fake coins, planning to sell them. After 2-3 weeks, he got to know that the coins were fake. He tried to track the suspects but failed after which he approached police.

The suspect handed him the coins and left after exchanging phone numbers.The businessman got the coins tested and found out that they were original. He contacted the suspect, who offered to provide him with 11 kgs of coins at ₹7 crore, police said.

“Gulshanbhai was the gang leader. He targeted only those people facing trouble with their luxury cars on highway. He and his associates used to impersonate poor farmers,” the Hitesh Yadav, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) (crime) said, adding that they asked the victim to get the coins checked as jewellers might suspect them to be thieves and alert the police.

DCP Yadav said, “Out of greed, the victim took loans from various sources to purchase more gold coins from the suspects,” he said. On March 2, Gulshanbhai along with a woman, who impersonated his wife, and took ₹ 2.49 crore and 583 grams of gold and gave the victim gold-plated brass coins, saying that the coins were worth four times the market price.

DCP Yadav said that Gulshanbhai and Sharma were arrested on Sunday and the other two were arrested from Vadodara on Wednesday. “ ₹2.3 crore and 678 grams of gold ornaments (check) worth ₹96 lakh were recovered from Gulshanbhai’s possession,” Yadav said.

“Gulshanbhai has two criminal cases of cheating and forgery registered against him in Mumbai, one in Rajasthan’s Kota and seven more in Gujarat. He was running this gang for the last 25 years,” he said.

Yadav said two of the cases against him in Mumbai were for cheating an actor of ₹25 lakh and a personal assistant of a screenwriter of ₹20 lakh almost 15 years back. Police said the gang had recently duped ₹90 lakh from a businessman in Kota.

Police said at least two women members involved in the case were yet to be arrested.