Summary of this article
A Bank of Baroda gold appraiser in Andhra Pradesh was accused of siphoning off gold ornaments worth about Rs 10 crore.
The accused allegedly replaced real jewellery with imitation items and base metals to evade checks.
Police have recovered part of the stolen gold, while the investigation is still ongoing.
Gold loans have spiked in recent times, fueled by soaring gold prices. While taking loans from a bank, one doesn’t doubt that the gold they are pledging may not come back. Recently, the senior branch manager of the Jangareddigudem branch of Bank of Baroda (BoB), in Eluru district, Andhra Pradesh, formally lodged a complaint about suspicious activities within the vault. The complaint led to the arrest of the bank’s official gold appraiser, a 40-year-old Chalapaka Raju, resident of Velamapeta in Jangareddigudem.
Following a detailed enquiry about the missing gold assets, the police detained Raju. He was alleged to have misappropriated borrowers’ pledged gold ornaments valued at approximately Rs 10 crore. While disclosing the matter during a press conference, K Pratap Siva Kishore, Eluru Superintendent of Police (SP) of Eluru, highlighted the breach of trust by an official within the institution, per the New India Express report.
The police have registered the crime under different sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), for cheating, dishonestly inducing the delivery of property, breach of trust by a public servant, among others, under Sections 318(4), 316(5), 336(3), and 305(5) of the BNS.
Upon further investigations, which involved a deep forensic audit of the bank’s vault, severe irregularities were exposed. The police found systematic siphoning off of the gold ornaments related to 176 individual gold loan accounts.
Raju misused his position as the official appraiser, a position of trust, to embezzle a large volume of gold ornaments over a period of time. Reportedly, the accused used a deceptive modus operandi to evade the bank’s daily verification process and internal audit by replacing the genuine gold with imitation jewellery and worthless base metals.
The slow replacement didn’t catch anyone’s notice. These calculated actions allowed the accused to keep both bank officials and the borrowers completely in the dark about the fraud.
The jewellery stolen from the vault is estimated to be around 6.449 kilograms (kg) of gold.
The investigation revealed that the accused didn’t keep the stolen gold with himself; instead, he re-pledged the assets or liquidated the jewellery across various jewellery shops in the city. He executed various transactions using his own name and the identity of his parents to leave no paper trail regarding embezzlement.
However, police teams have been able to find these transactions through financial evidence and documents. A special investigation team has even recovered Rs 5.71 crore worth of gold ornaments and seized Rs 10 lakh in cash. Thus, of the total Rs 10 crore fraud, Rs 5.81 crore has been recovered.
The remaining 2.329 kg of gold is still missing, for which the police investigation is ongoing.
The police are seeking formal custody of Raju for further interrogation and to verify the possibilities of involvement of bank officials. The interrogation may also help in identifying the receivers of the stolen jewellery who facilitated the liquidation of assets.
The huge amount of fraud and involvement of officials holding a trusted position raises questions about gaps in the processes.
In the last few years, gold prices have gone up significantly, fuelling the demand for gold loans. The outstanding loan portfolio has grown over three times over the last three years, from Rs 6.3 lakh crore in March 2023 to Rs 19.4 lakh crore by March 2026. While one may prefer a gold loan for lower interest rates, it is necessary to be aware of the risks involved.
