Surat-based jewellery maker dupes city jeweller of ₹1.84 cr

MUMBAI: A 31-year-old jeweller from Surat, Gujarat has been booked for fleeing with over 3kg of raw gold, valued around ₹1.84 crore. The police said the accused lured the city-based company by claiming that he would design their jewellery at a cheaper rate, worked for the company for a year, and later collected their raw gold and became unreachable.

The NM Joshi Marg police registered an offence following a complaint lodged by Romil Sanghvi, who works as an administrative manager with Prism Enterprises at Dhanraj Mill Compound in Lower Parel.

According to Prism Enterprises, which supplies jewellery to stores and boutiques and also exports the same, since 2021, it has been dealing with the accused, Gautam Wagh, who owns Apeksha Jewels Private Limited, Surat.

“Giving Prism attractive rates, a lot less than the prevailing market rate, Wagh accepted work of making gold and diamond jewellery for the firm. He used to take raw gold and in seven days supply the finished jewellery for which he used to get money in terms of a Memorandum of Understanding entered into between them in February 2021,” said a police officer.

From February 2021 to April 2022, Wagh dealt with Prism Enterprises and initially, he delivered the finished jewellery in time to gain the confidence of the company and secure bigger orders involving larger quantities of raw gold and later defaulted.

“They learned that the address given by Wagh was also fake and no company existed at the address given by him. Initially, he promised to deliver the jewellery in time, however, later they could not reach him. On searching the GST portal, showed that Wagh’s business was closed,” said the police officer. Eventually, the firm approached police and reported the matter. Based on their complaint, the police registered a case under section 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant, or agent) of the Indian Penal Code against Wagh. The police said Wagh has taken around 3002.87 grams of 24-karat gold valued at around ₹1.84 crore from the complainants.