Kolkata: The manager and a few staff of a gold loan service provider were arrested recently for allegedly misappropriation of gold ornaments of many customers worth about Rs 1.60 crore in Uttarpara, Hooghly.
According to sources, on December 29, a complaint was lodged by an officer of the gold loan service provider Muthoot Finance against the company’s Uttarpara branch manager Sanjib Dutta for allegedly stealing gold ornaments from the vault. The irregularity was spotted during an internal audit of Muthoot. When police went to the house of the manager, they found he had fled. During the probe, cops came to know that Dutta was hiding somewhere in Digha. On January 9, cops reached Digha and nabbed Dutta from a hotel. After he was taken into custody cops interrogated him and came to know about a few other staff who were also involved in the crime. Accordingly, all the accused persons were picked up by the cops.Sources informed that Dutta used to offer attractive schemes to the customers of Muthoot, Uttarpara if they agreed to handover the gold ornaments to him.
It was learnt that after taking the ornaments he used to invest those in another finance company while a part of the said gold was sold by him.
This apart, Dutta had cheated several customers by giving a handwritten deposit slip several times claiming that the computer was not working. Police also came to know that the accused manager often used to stop the CCTV camera recording while stealing the gold from the vault.
It was learnt that Dutta originally from Malipanchghora in Howrah is debt-ridden. Police are in the process of recovering the gold ornaments from the said finance company where Dutta had deposited to get a loan. Also, cops are interrogating him to find out where he had sold the gold ornaments.