Police in Bhandup have arrested two men, including a service manager with the State Bank of India, for allegedly stealing 4 kilos of gold jewellery worth around Rs3 crore from a bank locker.
According to the first information report (FIR) on Feb 28, by Amit Kumar, branch manager, SBI Mulund branch, said in his complaint on February 28 that he and the primary accused, Manoj Maruti Mhaske, worked at the branch, which mainly provides gold loans to customers.
Details of case
The matter first surfaced on Feb 27 when Mhaske was on leave, and Kumar was given custody of the branch’s gold locker. In the evening, Kumar said that he noticed that some of the gold jewellery packets were missing. “Till February 26, around 63 gold loans were ongoing, and hence there should have been 63 gold jewellery packets inside the locker, but there were only four; 59 were missing,” Kumar said in his police statement.
Kumar called Mhaske to check with him, and to his surprise, Mhaske confessed about “taking away the gold temporarily”, which was kept from October 2023 to February 26. Mhaske assured Kumar that he would return the gold within a week. Kumar later informed his seniors, and they calculated the missing gold jewellery packets were worth Rs3 crore.
Mhaske was called to the branch. He arrived and assured the officials that he would return the gold. Subsequently, the officials approached the police and registered a case. Later, the police arrested .
Mhaske charged with criminal breach of trust
Mhaske, a resident of Raheja Township in Malad, charged with criminal breach of trust by the banker under section 409 of the Indian Penal Code.
After Mhaske’s arrest, he was remanded to police custody by the court for further interrogation. During the interrogation, he told the police that he handed over the stolen gold jewellery to a ‘friend’ named Fareed Shaikh, who resides in the Antop Hill area. On Sunday, police officials confirmed that Shaikh had been arrested for selling the stolen gold jewellery to another person. There has been no recovery yet. Both Shaikh and Mhaske are currently in police custody.
