Uttar Pradesh: Man tricked into repaying for fake mortgaged jewellery, duped of Rs 11 lakh

LUCKNOW: A teacher was duped of Rs 11 lakh by his friend who tricked him into repaying for his mortgaged ornaments which were later found to be imitation gold.

While cracking the case, the police found out that it was part of a syndicate run by a bank employee. Subsequently, Ramveer Purohit, who worked on an ad-hoc basis as metal specialist with a bank, Raghvendra Kumar Srivastava and Umesh Kumar Yadav were arrested from Gauri Bazaar on Kanpur road.

ADCP, Central, Raghvendra Mishra, said the police started the probe when the victim — Surendra Kumar of Gauri Shanker Khera in Banthara — accused his acquaintance of criminal breach of trust and threatening.

Surendra said Umesh Kumar Yadav of Azamgarh met him 15 days back and sought help in getting back his gold ornaments which he had mortgaged at a bank in Krishna Nagar, Lucknow. “I met Umesh through our common friend Dinesh of Kakori and we became good friends. Taking advantage of this, Umesh asked me for help saying he would give me the ornaments at a lower price,” the victim said.

Surendra said he deposited Rs 4.19 lakh at the bank to get free the mortgaged gold ornaments. “After depositing the money, the bank manager told me that the gold ornaments were mortgaged at two different branches of the bank in the city and will be released only after the entire loan was paid off,” he said.

The victim said he cleared other loans amounting to over Rs 6 lakh and the bank manager agreed to release the gold ornaments. “After getting the ornaments from the bank, I rushed to a jeweller's shop. But to my horror, I was told that the ornaments were fake,” he said.

Surendra said he immediately contacted Umesh and told him about the forgery. “But, Umesh accused me of playing tricks and said he will not pay a single penny. He threatened me of dire consequences if I insisted on giving the money back,” he said.

He said Umesh was hand-in-glove with valuer Purohit who checked the authenticity of the gold ornaments.