Gold designer decamps with jeweller’s Rs 1.21 cr gold

13/6/2018

PUNE: The Dattawadi police have registered an offence against a Mumbai-based ornament designer for cheating a city jeweller to the tune of Rs 1.21 crore. The 42-year-old jeweller, Swapnil Kothari, has stated in his complaint that he was outsourcing his gold ornament design and related work to the designer (name withheld by police) for the last two years and the latter would return the designed ornaments within 15 days of placing the order.

However, since April this year, the designer has not returned ornaments worth Rs 1.21 crore. A resident of Parvati, Kothari’s jewellery shop is located at Mitramandal chowk. Sub-inspector A G Dafal of Dattawadi police said, “The ornament designer has gone missing for the last 10 days. His family members have lodged a missing person’s complaint with the Mumbai police. They are claiming that they have no clue about his whereabouts although, we have reservations about such claim.”

According to the complainant, the designer has been working as a jewellery design sub-contractor for various jewellery shops in Pune and Mumbai. He won Kothari’s confidence and regularly took gold from him for making ornaments. The designer would claim that he had highly skilled manpower in Mumbai for designing and making ornaments.

Dafal said, “Kothari knew the designer for the last two-and-a-half years. “Kothari had given gold to him for designing on many occasions and the designer had maintained faith by returning the ornaments in time. However, on different occasions since April 1, the ornament designer took gold ranging from 100 grams to 500 grams from Kothari for making gold ornaments, but did not return the ornaments. He was supposed to return jewellery weighing 4 kg, worth over Rs 1.21 crores. Kothari made many calls to the designer, but he never called back.”

Dafal said the designer was also working for few Mumbai-based jewellery shops, but they, too, informed the police that they have not seen him for the last two months. Police have registered a case of cheating and criminal breach of trust against the missing ornament designer.