Gold firm staff held for staging robbery

The Delhi Police have arrested four people, including a manager of Muthoot Finance, for staging a robbery bid and claiming that unidentified men stole gold worth Rs 80 lakh from them.

The Delhi Police have arrested four people, including a manager of Muthoot Finance, for staging a robbery bid and claiming that unidentified men had stolen gold worth R80 lakh from them.

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The manager along with another employee of the company had claimed that 3.4 kg of gold worth around R80 lakh had been robbed from them.

Police recovered 2.6 kg of gold and R10 lakh in cash. Sreejith (30), assistant manager with Muthoot, Girish Chand (38), an office boy, and their associates Amit Advani (30) and Sandeep Khatri were arrested on Saturday.

Girish had told police that two men had snatched the bag from him at gunpoint in Central Delhi's Karol Bagh.

"During investigation, the version of Girish was not found to be satisfactory. Immediately after the 'incident', he made a call to Sreejith, his manager. During sustained interrogation, Girish broke down and confessed that he had staged the whole incident. He along with Sreejith and two others had planned to embezzle the jewellery and make a false claim of robbery," Alok Kumar, DCP (central) said.

On Friday, Sreejith and Girish had gone to Lajpat Nagar to bring about six kilogram of gold ornaments to their branch at East Park Road.

The gold was kept in 58 sealed packets, which were further placed in two bags.

In one bag carried by Sreejith, there were 46 packets with ornaments weighing about 2.6 kg and the bag being carried by Girish had 12 packets with gold ornaments weighing about 3.4 kg. This bag was allegedly stolen.

"During investigation, it was found that Sreejith was in contact with Sandeep Khatri and soon after reaching East Park Road, near his branch, he called Sandeep who sent Amit and Girish handed him the bag and made a call of robbery," Kumar added.