Kolhapur: A gang of nine people, including two women, has been arrested for allegedly pledging nearly 2 kg fake gold ornaments with five different banks and three jewellers and taking loans of Rs 39 lakh over the past four years.The suspects, who were arrested on Thursday, have been booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating) and 34 while a hunt has been launched for one of their accomplices, said the Karveer police.According to police, the banks and jewellers gave the suspects loans after the appraisers certified it as pure. Two banks have lodged complaints in this regard following an alert by police. The other banks and three jewellers are in the process of registering complaints, said police.The arrested were identified as Chandrakant Shivram Bhingarde (55) of Phulewadi, Atul Nivrutti Mane (29), Vilas Arjun Yadav, both residents of Ganeshwadi; Amar Dinkar Patil (28), Vikram Madhukar Koigade (30), both from Shiroli Dumala; Bharti Srikant Jadhav (45) of Pachgaon, Prithviraj Prakash Gavali (28), Ganeshnagar Shinganapur, all from Karveer taluka; Rakesh Rajanikant Randive (41) of Gangavesh in Kolhapur and Kavita Anandrao Rakshe (28), a resident of Subhashnagar, Koregaon, Satara district.Superintendent of police Abhinav Deshmukh said, “We got a tip-off that a gang involved in borrowing loan from banks using fake gold jewellery was operating in Kolhapur. A team of Karveer police started investigations and detained some people.”Under interrogation, they revealed that 10 people were involved in the fraud and that they had cheated five banks and three jewellery firms by borrowing Rs 39 lakh against 2kg fake jewellery with gold plating. The suspects had opened accounts with these banks and took loans.“They bank officials said they were unaware of it when we informed them about the fraud. The officials said the gold jewellery submitted by the suspects with them was pure. We melted one of the jewellery items and found that it contained only 17% gold. The remaining was copper. We melted another ornament which had 3% gold and 97% copper,” said the officer.Deshmukh said the suspects were using such good quality fake jewellery that the bank’s appraiser who evaluates the gold’s purity failed to realise that it was duplicate. Three banks have machines that can identify pure and fake gold but even these machines failed to recognise these fake jewellery items. Police are probing if bank officials and appraiser are also involved.The modus operandi of the gang was to purchase the jewellery from the arrested suspect, Kavita Rakshe, for Rs 10,000 per tola (10 gram) and take loan against the jewellery. Police are checking from where Rakshe was getting the fake gold jewellery and those involved in making such type of jewellery.“The possibility of other banks from south Maharashtra and other parts of the state being conned in a similar manner cannot be ruled out. We appeal to bank officials to check the gold jewellery against which they have given loans to people and validate if it is original or fake,” added Deshmukh.

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