Search launched for 30 members of family selling ordinary jewels as gold in T Nagar

CHENNAI: Police are searching for the group who conned people of several lakhs by selling fake gold jewellery as real gold.

Rukumani (34) of T Nagar runs a mobile service centre in the locality. Two people who used to visit her shop would regularly tell her that they had many gold ornaments and were planning to sell them due to financial issues.

The duo also showed Rukumani a gold chain and asked her to check the quality. Police said she checked the quality with a pawnbroker and had confirmed that it was original gold.

Following that, Rukumani trusted the duo and told them that she would buy all their ornaments. The duo said that the jewellery was valued at Rs 12 lakh but they were selling it to her for Rs 6.5 lakh. They invited Rukumani to a hotel near the Tambaram bus stop and gave her a bag full of ornaments, after receiving the money.

Later, when Rukumani went to the pawnshop with the jewels, she found that they were gold-painted. Soon, she filed a complaint with the Tambaram police. With the help of CCTV in the bus stop, the police arrested Geetha (47) in Appur and seized Rs 5.5 lakh along with some fake jewellery from Geetha.

During inquiry, police found that Geetha was a native of Karnataka. Along with 30 of her relatives, she was staying in a rented house in Appur near Chengalpattu district.

The family would divide into several groups and cheat people by giving them fake jewels and extract money from them. The police have formed special teams and the search is on to nab the others who are missing.