Bhubaneswar, Oct 15: Police are planning to convene a meeting with officials of gold financing companies to ensure that they did not extend loans without verifying the source of the yellow metal.

The decision to convene the meeting was taken after the police arrested Balaram Martha, 32, who had taken loan from such a finance company at Lewis Road by mortgaging 450gm of gold that he had bought from a jewellery shop fraudulently.

Police said Martha, a native of Nayagarh, had bought the ornaments from a jewellery shop near Master Canteen Square on September 20.

“He had given three blank cheques for the gold ornaments valued at Rs 14.63 lakh. However, the next day, he called the shop owner and asked him not to encash the cheques. Later, he gave Rs 7.05 lakh in cash to the shop owner and did not pay the remaining amount,” said a police official.

Despite the shop owner trying to contact him for the rest of the money, Martha remained untraceable.

Later, the shop owner lodged a complaint with Kharvela Nagar police station on Monday and the police arrested Martha on the charges of fraud.

Further investigation by the police revealed that Martha had mortgaged the gold and had availed a loan of Rs 8.4 lakh and later paid Rs 7.05 lakh to the jewellery shop from this money.

The police said that Martha had invested the rest of money in his construction business.

The police have also seized the gold ornaments.

On October 1, a man was nabbed while he was trying to avail loan from a finance company by mortgaging stolen gold. On August 16, a saleswoman of a city-based jewellery store was arrested for stealing ornaments.

The cops had found that the woman had also mortgaged the metal to hide the stolen jewellery.

“We will examine the process of obtaining loans against gold from companies and see what lacunae are there. Most of them have been extending loan without verifying the source of the gold,” said police commissioner R.P. Sharma.

On the other hand, employees of gold finance companies said that it was difficult to verify the antecedents of customers.

“While extending loan, we verify their identity and address proof. But it is impossible to ascertain whether the gold is stolen or not,” said an employee of a finance company.

Laptop thieves

Police today arrested two youths and seized 18 laptops from them.

The two have been identified as Abhitesh Naik, 22, an engineering graduate and Manoj Kumar Khatua, 27.

The police said Naik, who had completed his engineering course last year, was mainly targeting private hostels to steal laptops.

“Taking the advantage of the absence of engineering students early in the morning and evening, he used to decamp with the laptops. He is involved in several laptop theft cases under Saheed Nagar, Khandagiri, Kharavela Nagar and Airfield police station areas,” said a police official.