Mumbai: The deputy branch manager of a private bank from Kandivli has been arrested by the police for misappropriating gold ornaments worth Rs 82 lakh from the bank locker of an NRI. Kuldeep Sahni, the accused, has been booked on charges of “criminal breach of trust.”The complainant is 72 years old and has been living in Dubai for more than five decades with his family. He operates a bank account with a private bank in Mumbai and has a flat in Kandivli. In March 2024, he placed 610 gm of gold ornaments worth Rs 82 lakh in the locker of the bank’s Kandivli branch. Two years later, when he visited the branch and checked the locker, the gold had vanished. He made inquiries with the bank and eventually lodged a police complaint on Aug 12.An FIR was registered by Kandivli Police. As the incident pertained to two years ago, the police faced challenges accessing old CCTV footage of the branch. They made inquiries within the bank and found out that the locker had been made available to the senior citizen by the branch’s deputy manager (Sahni).The police team, under the supervision of DCP Sandeep Ghuge and senior inspector Karan Sonkavde, looked through Sahni’s bank transactions over the past two years. They found that transactions up to Rs 9 crore had been made in his account. Most of the transactions were made with firms that dealt with gold mortgage. Police teams then approached the firms and asked them for photos of ornaments that Sahni had mortgaged with them. Among these, police found the complainant’s jewellery. It was recovered and Sahni was arrested within four days of the case being registered.
