Rs13 lakh gold stolen from customers on Amazon, 2 held

Two people associated with firms that delivered products sold on Amazon.com, were arrested for allegedly stealing gold coins worth at least Rs13 lakh ordered by customers.

The two arrested have been identified as 27-year-old Rahul Pisal, a delivery boy from Sakinaka, and 28-year-old Vaibhav Sawant, a Jogeshwari resident, who works for a supply and logistics firm. The accused were produced before a local court and remanded in police custody until January 13.

The racket was busted after Amazon.com began receiving complaints from customers in Mumbai, Kalyan, Pune in Maharashtra, and also from New Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. Following this, an FIR was registered at the MIDC police station.

An Amazon India spokesperson said, “As India’s most trusted online marketplace, we take incidents of theft extremely seriously. We have terminated the contractual associates responsible for this particular incident and are extending all possible support to local law enforcement agencies in their investigation.”

According to the preliminary investigation, the police suspect the accused only targeted delivery consignments containing gold valuables. Once a customer placed an order for a gold coin on the website, Pishal picked up the order from the jewellers tied up with the shopping portal. He would then make his way Amazon’s warehouse. But just before reaching the warehouse, Pishal would remove the gold coin from the parcel and reseal it, said police sub-inspector Hanumant Dhavan, who is also the investigating officer.

Officials recorded statements of various employees involved in the process — from pick up to delivery — to identify the suspects. The police zeroed down on Pisal and Sawant and they were arrested. The police have recovered gold worth Rs4.80 lakh from the accused, the police said.

Senior inspector Shailesh Pasalwar of the MIDC police station said, “We have registered an offence under Indian penal code section 120 b (criminal conspiracy) 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust) 408 (criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant). Two accused have been arrested and the police have been questioning several delivery boys to catch the mastermind.”