Rajkot: Jamnagar local crime branch arrested two men accused of cheating jewellers by renting shops nearby, gaining their trust through small purchases and then taking gold jewellery home on the pretext of showing it to family members. Valuables worth Rs 17.7 lakh have been seized.Police arrested 46-year-old Suresh Thakar and 39-year-old Jagdish Bhatt for the fraud and seized gold jewellery, mobile phones and a motorcycle worth Rs 17.7 lakh from the accused.On Aug 14, a 32-year-old gold dealer, Mitesh Kadecha, filed a complaint at Kalavad City police station, alleging that a man identifying himself as Sagar Mehta cheated him of gold jewellery worth Rs 7,59,530.Kadecha stated that he runs Shreeji Jewellers on Old Green Market Road in Kalavad. On July 15, a man identifying himself as Sagar Mehta told him, “I run a shop called Sagar Traders next to your shop, where I deal in disposable items.”According to the complaint, the man first bought a 1.25-gram gold pendant in cash. The next day, he bought a 4.25-gram gold chain. On a subsequent visit, he selected two gold chains and a bracelet and requested permission to take three chains and one bracelet home so that his family could choose from them. He told the jeweller he would keep the items his wife liked and return the rest.Kadecha alleged that the man neither returned the jewellery nor paid for it. When he later tried to verify the person’s details, he learnt that the individual had not executed any rent agreement for the shop and had provided no identity proof, telling the property owner that his documents were in Rajkot.Jamnagar SP Ravi Mohan Saini told TOI that the accused would rent vacant shops next to jewellery stores and sold low-priced items. They stayed in contact with jewellers and gradually gained their trust.The accused would initially buy lower-value jewellery before seeking to take more expensive items home for approval by family members, police said. They would then disappear without returning either the jewellery or the money.According to Saini, the accused operated the same scheme in different cities by opening shops near jewellers and using different names.Police said the accused rented a shop called Shiv Traders near a jewellery store in Amreli while using the name ‘Kumar Pandya’.In Upleta, they operated a shop called Darshan Traders near a jeweller’s shop, with one of them identifying himself as ‘Darshan Mehta’.In Kalavad, they ran Sagar Traders near a jewellery shop, where one of the accused introduced himself as ‘Sagar Mehta’, police said.
