The Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Coimbatore City Police arrested one more former employee of a non-banking finance company (NBFC) on charges of defrauding the firm of ₹ 40.8 lakh by pledging fake jewellery in the name of customers. P. Karthika (31) of Othakalmandapam near Coimbatore was arrested based on the complaint lodged by J. Vinothkumar, cluster manager of the NBFC for Coimbatore, said the police. She had been working as the head of the NBFC’s Kuniyamuthur branch. As per the complaint lodged by Mr. Vinothkumar on July 30, a total of 597.34 g of jewellery kept in the company’s lockers were found to be fake in an audit conducted on February 5 this year. The audit found that ₹ 26.80 lakh was issued as loan against the fake jewellery between November 23, 2021 and February 5, 2022. The audit also found another set of 277.28 g of jewellery to be spurious, said the police. According to officials, Karthika, former assistant manager Sathya and another employee Saravanakumar put fake signatures of the account holders and pledged the fake jewellery in their names. The accused availed of a total of ₹ 40.80 lakh as loan against the spurious jewellery. Sathya was arrested by the CCB on August 8.
