3 arrested for pawning fake hallmarked gold chains
Mumbai: The police on Saturday arrested three members of a gang for allegedly duping a jeweller by mortgaging fake gold chains embossed with the authentication mark
Mumbai: The police on Saturday arrested three members of a gang for allegedly duping a jeweller by mortgaging fake gold chains embossed with the authentication mark. The police are on the lookout for the fourth member of the gang who embossed the fake mark on the false gold chains.
Police unearthed the racket after Hitesh Jain, owner of Prince jewellery shop at Borivali East, approached them last Sunday. Jain in his statement told the police that a man named Rahul Pednekar (22) had come to their shop while the renovation was going on and they were shifting their valuables to a locker. Pednekar had gone to them with a person who was known to Jain and said that he needed to mortgage his gold chain worth ₹3 lakh.
“Pednekar told Jain that his friend’s father had cancer and he needed money urgently and was ready to accept ₹1.20 lakh for the chain,” said API Om Totawar, from Kasturba Marg police station.
Seeing the authenticity mark and considering the urgency of his request Jain gave him the cash. Two days later, Pednekar went to the showroom again with two chains to mortgage. Since Jain was not there, his employee Pravin Vaishnav asked him to come two days later and informed Jain about Pednekar’s visit.
Jain who suspected foul play checked the gold chain that Pednekar had mortgaged and approached the police after he found it was fake.
“We traced Pednekar through the CCTV image of the showroom and his call data records and arrested him. Pedenekar then told us that he was offered ₹5,000 commission for mortgaging the chain that was given to him by one Amit Vichare (33),” said Totawar.
Vichare directed the police towards Narsingh Mali alias Munna (42) who stays in Jogeshwari saying that he had offered Vichare a commission to mortgage the fake chain.
“We arrested Mali and recovered six fake gold chains with the authentication mark from him,” said Totawar.
The police are now tracing the man who provided Mali with the chains and finding out whether he made and embossed the mark himself or was getting it done from somewhere. The police are also trying to find out how many more jewellers had been duped by the gang.