How a man posed as hotel manager and cheated a jewellery shop of lakhs of rupees

Pune: Jewellery worth 3.10 lakh have been stolen by a man posing as a hotel manager. The man called himself Rakesh Shah and approached Malabar jewellery shop in Phoenix mall wanting to give gold ornaments to hotel customers. He ordered the ornaments and asked them to deliver it to the hotel. When the jewellery shop made the delivery, he received it and ran away with them.

The incident took place on Friday afternoon. Rakesh Shah posing as Novotel hotels manager called Bhupendra Zaveri, 49, who is the sales manager at Malabar gold and diamond shop at Phoenix mall. He asked him to bring two gold chains, one gold bracelet and a pendant which was worth Rs 3.10 lakh.
Sub-inspector Vitthol Surve of Airport police station is investigating the case. He said, “Zaveri along with his sale executive went to the hotel. The con was wearing formal clothes and made the sale executive sit in another counter and offer him juice. He took Zaveri to the swimming pool area of the hotel for tallying the gold amount. He told Zaveri he will approach his owner and will return. He then went to the sale executive and told him that Zaveri is collecting the amount upstairs and asked him to give the ornaments. Later Zaveri met the sale executive and they realised they were conned.”