Police said that Lalan Shaikh and Arman Shaikh had huge debts, due to which they planned the theft. (Representational Image)
The Surat Crime Branch on Tuesday arrested nine persons hailing from West Bengal working as goldsmiths in Surat for their alleged involvement in theft of gold dust worth around Rs 1.42 crore from a diamond and jewellery firm in Surat.
According to police, Keyur Patel, owner of Dazzele Jewels, lodged a complaint with Varachha police station stating that over 4.46 kilogram of gold dust worth around Rs 1.42 crore was stolen from his firm on February 15.
Crime branch officials launched a probe and arrested the nine men allegedly involved in the theft and seized around 785 grams of gold worth Rs 27.76 lakh, Rs 1.74 lakh in cash, 14 mobile phones worth Rs 1.27 lakh, two moped used in the theft worth Rs 75,000.
The accused, Lalan Shaikh (30), Arman Mandal (23), Sakib Shaikh (21), Rahuluddin Shaikh (27), Noorhassan Shaikh (30), Prashantjit Das (30), Sujal Das (35), Debashish Samanto (34) and Jafar Shaikh (27), hail from West Bengal and are residents of Mahidharpura in Surat.
Police said that Lalan Shaikh and Arman Shaikh had huge debts, due to which they planned the theft. Debashish Samanto had earlier worked in the factory of Keyur Patel and he shared information about gold dust lying in small pockets in machines with others.
Assistant commissioner of police RR Sarwaiya said, “We have arrested all the accused and are trying to get more information from them. The accused tried to carry out the theft the first time on February 2 but were unsuccessful. They again tried on February 15 and succeeded. They were stationed at different places in the factory and shared information to each other on mobile phones. The accused melted the gold dust and made small gold sticks that were sold outside for Rs 2 lakh each.”