KARACHI: The city police have unearthed a financial fraud in Karachi as employees of a private bank secretly replaced gold worth Rs 550 million with ‘fake gold’ in the lockers.
The revelations were made after the audit of a JS Bank branch in the Gulistan-e-Johar area of Karachi where the original gold assets of citizens to acquire loans were replaced with ‘fake gold’ by the bank staffers.
It emerged that the bank staffers at Gulistan-e-Johar acquired a loan worth Rs24 million by giving gold assets as a guarantee for a fake customer. Alongside acquiring the loan, the staffers had secretly replaced the original gold with the fake gold.
The gold stocks were reportedly placed inside the lockers by the citizens to acquire loans. It was learnt that the bank staff had changed original gold with fake gold from more than 150 bags.
In the Gulshan-e-Iqbal branch of the same bank, the management detected fake customers who had been awarded loans worth millions.
Later, the bank management has filed two separate cases at Shah Faisal and Aziz Bhatti police stations against the culprits. The nominated persons include five managers of operations, relationship, counter service, gold finance executive, and fake customers.
In another development, police officials have arrested seven suspects including branch managers of both bank branches and recovered original gold worth Rs30 million from their homes.
