Four gold finance firm staffers held for fraud in Bengaluru; branch head absconding

Yeshwantpur police arrested four people working with a private gold finance firm for defrauding the company and customers.

The arrested Amarnath, a 38-year-old sales executive, Shivakumar, a 42-year-old assistant branch head, Monisha, the 24-year-old assistant to the branch manager, and 28-year-old auditor Shankar Gowda were all attached with the Yeshwantpur branch of Manappuram Gold Finance.

The branch head, regarded as the main suspect, is still at large and police are making efforts to nab her.

Police said the suspects allegedly misused a large amount of the company money and deployed different methods of fraud on its customers. They would give customers half of the eligible loan amount and pocket the rest without their knowledge, besides placing fake gold in the company’s safe and misusing gold provided by customers.

Stole defaulters’ gold

Investigation reveals that the gang allegedly pocketed the money they raised by selling the gold of customers who defaulted on their loan payments in public auctions.

Though the accused were involved in the fraud for a long time, it came to light recently. The gang concealed their crime by snapping power supply to the building whenever auditors from the head office visited their branch. They were tipped off about such visits by auditor Gowda.

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