Gold finance company owner, who had fled with pledged gold ornaments, arrested

580 grams gold jewellery worth Rs. 22.35 lakh recovered

Mysore/Mysuru: Lashkar Police have arrested the owner of a gold finance company, who had allegedly fled with gold ornaments pledged by the public and have recovered Rs. 22.35 lakh jewellery from him.

The arrested person is 42-year-old Manjunath of Gundlupet in Chamarajanagar, who was running Balaji Gold Finance Company on Irwin Road in city. Manjunath used to advertise in newspapers asking people who had pledged their gold ornaments at high interest rates that he would get their gold released and pledge them in his company at the rate of one percent interest.

Many people, who had pledged their jewellery at high interest rates, had got them released and pledged the same at Manjunath’s gold finance company. But one fine day, Manjunath closed his company and fled with the pledged gold ornaments, Police said.

One Ningamma, who wanted to buy a car for her son, had pledged her gold at high interest rate in a gold finance company. On seeing Manjunath’s advertisement, which offered loan against gold at very less interest rate, Ningamma approached Manjunath. He (Manjunath) himself went to the gold finance company, where Ningamma had pledged her gold, got it released after paying Rs. 1.5 lakh and pledged the 52 grams gold ornaments at his company at one percent interest. After a few days, Ningamma again pledged her 11 gram gold chain for Rs. 23,000 at Manjunath’s Balaji Gold Finance company.

On Feb. 22, when Ningamma went to Manjunath’s gold finance company, she found it closed and lodged a complaint with Lashkar Police after coming to know that Manjunath had fled from the city.

Lashkar Police, who had registered a case, traced Manjunath at the Rural Bus Stand on Feb. 28, arrested him and recovered 580 grams gold ornaments worth Rs. 22.35 lakh from him.