Ahmedabad: An employee has allegedly cheated a Vatva jeweller of nearly Rs 7 lakh by handing out cash loans to ‘customers’ against fake gold chains. According to the store owner, the employee sent his people to the shop with fake gold chains and facilitated loans against them. The owner handed over the employee and a fake customer to Vatva police after coming to know of the cheating. Police on Wednesday filed a complaint against the two.The jeweller stated in the FIR that his was a licensed money-lending and jewellery business. The accused had been hired five years ago and hadn’t been reporting to work for the past three months. The jeweller became suspicious when several customers who had pledged their gold chains became unreachable.According to the complaint, the first such loan was given in Oct last year. The ‘customer’ pledged a chain weighing about 37g and received Rs 3 lakh at 1% monthly interest. The complainant said a second customer pledged a chain in Dec and received Rs 1.50 lakh at the same rate. A third loan was also issued in Dec when Rs 2.50 lakh loan was given against a chain. In total, the shop loaned Rs 7 lakh in cash. When the borrowers did not return and stopped answering calls, the jeweller checked the pawned items and found them to be fake. The complainant stated, “The employee won my trust and sent different customers to pledge counterfeit chains as genuine gold to obtain money.”His suspicion grew during another pledge attempt. The owner immediately called police control, and the customer and the former employee were detained for questioning.
