Artisan who fled away with Rs 5 crore jewellery arrested from West Bengal

Mumbai: Dadar police have arrested a jewellery artisan for allegedly cheating several jewellers and fleeing with gold ornaments worth over Rs 4.5 crore entrusted to him for remaking. Police have not been able to recover anything from him.

A week after registration of the FIR, the Dadar police team led by Inspector Kishore Pawar tracked the accused, identified as Tanmay Maiti, 41, to his native place in Hooghly, West Bengal. Officials said they arrested him, but no booty has been recovered from him. Maiti was produced before 5th Metropolitan Magistrate VV Kulkarni. Public prosecutor Ravindra Patil argued that Maiti be remanded to police custody as they want to physically interrogate him to recover the booty. The court remanded him to police custody till June 2.

The case pertains to a complaint filed by Sanjay Jain, owner of Nava Gems in Jhaveri Bazaar, alleging that he handed over 2.25 kg of gold worth Rs 3.53 crore to Maiti at his Dadar workshop in May through his staff members Jitu Soni and Vijay Jain for making jewellery. The gold included 17 biscuits weighing 100 grams each, one 500-gram biscuit and one 50-gram biscuit.

Jain stated that when he contacted Maiti on May 20 regarding the jewellery order, the accused allegedly informed him that the ornaments were ready and would be delivered shortly. However, on May 22, another acquaintance informed Jain that Maiti had shut down his factory and absconded. Repeated attempts to contact him failed as his mobile phone was switched off.

During the inquiry, police found that other jewellers had also allegedly been cheated by Maiti. Baba Kolekar reportedly lost 625 grams of 22-carat gold worth Rs 86 lakh, while Mahesh Vaidya of Pandurang Hari Vaidya and Sons Jewellers allegedly lost 84.034 grams of gold worth Rs 12.15 lakh.

The total gold allegedly misappropriated by the accused was valued at Rs 4.51 crore and weighed around 2.959 kg.