Mangaluru: In a fraud case reported in the city, the Mangaluru city police arrested a couple who obtained a loan up to Rs 4.5 crore from the Catholic Syrian Bank, Falnir branch by allegedly mortgaging plated gold.
The accused have been identified as Vidyananda Rao(59) and his wife Lalitha Rao(52), residents of Bondel.
It is learnt that both Vidyananda Rao and his wife who owned jewellery shop had cheated the bank on umpteen occasions earlier too by mortgaging the gold-coated bronze ornaments to obtain loans. Reportedly, Rao himself used to gold coat the ornaments for pledging purposes.
Interestingly, though the officials used to conduct a check on the ornaments before releasing the loans they never suspected anything amiss and had sanctioned the hefty loan accepting the ornaments as surety.
Following a recent instance of a similar fraud in Shirva where plated jewellery was pledged to avail loans came to light, the bank officials had undertaken a scrutiny of the pledged gold in the bank. The fraud was revealed during the scrutiny and officials intimated the police.
A complaint was lodged in Bunder police station here on Tuesday July 25 where after the couple were arrested.