In a major crackdown on an inter-State cheating gang, the Gurugram Police have arrested four members who allegedly conned victims with fake gold coins. The gang also duped Bollywood actor Aditya Pancholi and Salman Khan’s father Salim Khan’s PA years ago, said the police.

The accused have been identified as Solanki Prabhubhai Gulshanbhai alias Kalpesh alias Ravi, Pankaj Sharma, Manish Kamlesh Shah and Ishwar Marwari. Solanki, a resident of Gujarat’s Vadodara, and Delhi’s Pankaj were arrested in Gurugram on April 12. Manish and Ishwar, both residents of Vadodara, were arrested in Gujarat on April 15.

The police team recovered ₹2.30 crore in cash and 678 grams of gold from the possession of the accused.

The police interrogation revealed that the accused preyed on educated individuals by exploiting their greed. Most members of the ‘Prabhubhai Gang’ are uneducated; they would roam around disguised as poor labourers, carrying a few genuine gold and silver coins with them. They showed these coins to wealthy individuals, claiming that they had found them while digging and sought their help to get them appraised by a jeweller. For not getting the coins appraised themselves, the accused would give an excuse saying that they were poor labourers and would be arrested by the police. They also shared their contact number with the potential victim to win their confidence.

Upon appraisal, the coins were indeed found to be made of gold. The accused then negotiated a deal at a rate of ₹25 to ₹30 lakhs per kilogram. Seeing the potential for such massive profit, greed took root in the minds of the victims; exploiting this very greed, the accused hand over copper coins coated with a gold wash and flee away.

The arrests were made after a man filed a complaint at Sushant Lok Police Station on April 1, saying that an unidentified man had lured him by promising to sell gold and silver coins at a low price and duped him of ₹2.49 crore in cash, borrowed on interest, and 50g of gold.

Gang leader Prabhubhai, active for 25 years, mostly operated in Mumbai and Gujarat. Police revealed that he duped Aditya Pancholi of ₹25 lakh and Salim Khan’s PA of ₹20 lakh around 15 years ago. With scam proceeds, he bought ‘Hotel PM’ and property on the Delhi-Mumbai highway near Karjan-Lakodra. He married four times and even produced a Gujarati film titled “Love You”. He also filed nomination papers for his wife, Parvati Solanki, in the Gujarat Municipal Council polls, seeking political clout.