Balasore, July 21: Balasore police today arrested five employees of a private finance company after it was detected that mortgaged gold worth nearly Rs 25 lakh had disappeared from the company’s lockers.

The arrests were made after the regional manager of the company — Muthoot Finance — a gold loan company, lodged a complaint with the police on Saturday evening.

The complainant Nirod Chandra Das, regional manager of the company, alleged that gold weighing 826gm kept in 11 separate packets were found missing from the lockers of its Balasore branch,” said Nagendra Nayak, deputy superintendent of police (district crime wing).

The company, which has branches across India, begun its business in Balasore in 2011 and had been extending loan to people against gold mortgage.

One of the loanees, Bhagban Das, had pointed out that after he repaid his loan amount in the first week of June, he did not find his mortgaged gold in the company’s locker.

He lodged a compliant with the company and a physical check was conducted by the firm’s regional office.

During physical verification, the officials detected that 10 other gold packets too were missing.

The company has sanctioned Rs 16.27 lakh to 11 persons against 826gram of gold to 11 customers.

The Sahadevkhunta police have arrested Pradip Panda, Siddharth Vajpayee, Arabinda Sahu, Tilottama Barik and Debdas Biswal.