Three held in Ghaziabad for betting on gold, silver

The Ghaziabad police have arrested three jewellers involved in betting on gold and silver stocks.

The Ghaziabad police have arrested three jewellers involved in betting on gold and silver stocks.

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The jewellers were arrested from a room of a reputed hotel on Tuesday. The police also recovered Rs 1 crore — in denomination of Rs 1,000 currency notes — from them.

The trio has been identified as Pankaj Aggarwal, Deepak Gupta — both residents of Meerut, and Amit Gupta, a resident of Ghaziabad.

“The three were running a betting racket and involved small investors in the crime. They told us that they employed several armed-men to threaten people who did not pay the money in time,” said Raghubir Lal, senior superintendent of police (SSP).

During investigation, the accused told the police that they opened up metal commodity exchange (MCX) accounts and invested in metals.

“Later, they effected their stocks’ transactions with small investors; not through accounts, but verbally. Money was collected and disposed-off without reflecting in the MCX accounts that also caused tax losses to government agencies,” the SSP added.

The accused had gathered to carry out un-accounted cash transactions at a hotel in Ghaziabad . They told police that they ran such betting syndicates in the NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai and other metro cities.

Police also recovered a licensed foreign-made pistol from one of the accused. The three accused were booked under sections of IPC and IT Act at Ghanta Ghar police station.

“The accused have accumulated property worth crores of rupees in Dehradun, Mumbai and Bengaluru from the profits of illegal betting. We are handing over the investigation of these properties to the IT and Enforcement-Directorate officials,” the SSP added.