Gujarat natives held for duping TN gold smiths in Kochi
Gujarat natives held for duping TN gold smiths in Kochi
Kochi, The Kerala Police on Friday arrested four Gujarat natives for allegedly duping goldsmiths from Namakkal in Tamil Nadu by falsely claiming to sell soil containing gold particles, officials said.
The accused, identified as Sandeep Hasmukh Bhai , Vipul Manji Bhai , Dharmesh Bhai , and Krupesh Bhai , all natives of Surat allegedly defrauded the victims of ₹50 lakh in cash and cheques worth ₹18 lakh, police said.
The arrests were made following an investigation based on a complaint filed by the Tamil Nadu-based goldsmiths.
The accused had rented a building on North Janatha Road in Palarivattom here and convinced the victims that they had collected soil containing gold particles from a gold ornament factory, according to the police.
They packed this soil into about 500 sacks. To make the victims believe their claim the accused allowed them to collect a five-kilogram sample from the sacks, police added. The accused had set up a specially prepared table in a separate room.
When the victims placed the sample kit on a weighing scale on the table, one of the accused—who had been hiding beneath the table—used a syringe to inject a gold solution into the sample through a pre-made hole in both the scale and the table.
This trick convinced the victims that the soil contained a high quantity of gold, police said.
Believing the claim, the Tamil Nadu goldsmiths paid ₹50 lakh in cash and handed over two cheques to purchase five tonnes of the soil.
However, upon processing the initial sample, the victims noticed an unusually high gold content, which aroused suspicion. This prompted them to approach the Palarivattom police, officials said.
The police launched an investigation based on CCTV footage from the crime scene, officers said.
Acting on the directive of the Kochi City Police Commissioner Putta Vimaladitya, officers tracked down and arrested the accused from their hideouts in the city.
Further investigations revealed that similar fraud cases against the accused had been reported at the Senthamangalam police station in Tamil Nadu and the Ernakulam North police station, here, according to the police. The probe into these cases is underway, police said.
The accused were produced before a court here which remanded them to judicial custody.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
