Seven booked for collateral gold scam

Police have registered a case against seven employees of a cooperative bank on charges of embezzling over Rs16.5 million by keeping fake gold in bags as collateral.

The bank administration has suspended the employees including a branch manager, while an audit team has started an investigation.

According to officials, a customer, Sajid Basheer Fatiana, had obtained loan by depositing gold as collateral.

When the customer asked for his jewellery after repaying the loan amounting to Rs506,696, a senior officer took out the jewellery from the bag, but the bank's goldsmith declared it fake.

A team from Lahore conducted an inquiry and found 533 grams of fake jewellery in the bags with bogus documents dated December 6 and November last year.

The manager Amanat Ali, Noman Akram, Faryal, Zafar Iqbal, two guards, a messenger and a goldsmith are suspected to being involved in putting fake jewelry in the bags and sealing them.

Harappa police registered a case against the suspects under Section 420, 468, 471 and 408 on the complaint of Nazeer Ahmad, a senior vice president of the bank.

Local police officials said the suspects had not been arrested so far but an investigation was under way.