At least 80 persons claimed that they have been cheated by a private pawnbroker in Othakadai as they are unable to get back their jewels pledged with him.
Public thronged the Othakadai police station on Wednesday to lodge a complaint with the Superintendent of Police V. Balakrishnan.
According to them, they had pledged their jewels with a local pawn broker, identified as Balachandar, son of Kalyanasundaram of Narasingam.
After taking in the valuables, the financier had re-pledged the gold jewels with two private finance companies for a higher value.
When the borrowers approached the pawn broker daily, he dodged them with different tales. Preliminary inquiries revealed that the financier had allegedly spent the money after pledging the jewels.
Mr. Balakrishnan directed the police to register a case and inquire into the complaints.
Though public sector banks offered gold loans, public, for different reasons, approached private individuals and finance companies for loans, which caused problems to them and many even lost their properties.
