The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Nagpur Police has arrested Sachin Raut, the prime accused in the Rs 23 crore fake gold loan scam involving ICICI Bank. Raut’s arrest is a major development in the case. Police allege that he was the key person who arranged fake borrowers and facilitated the fraudulent gold loans through bank officials. Raut, who runs a scrap business, had initially taken a gold loan from the bank in his own name in 2018-19. He later built a good credit record. Investigators suspect that he used this credibility to gain the confidence of bank officials. According to the investigation, bank managers were under pressure to meet gold loan targets. Raut took advantage of this situation and arranged for his labourers to become borrowers.

 

Fake gold ornaments were then pledged in their names. Bank officials helped process and sanction the loans. Police suspect the involvement of bank managers Pankaj Kekatpure, Dinesh Nagpure and Ashish Vanjari, along with Deputy Manager Prakash Avasthi. Gold valuer Nandu Kharwade certified fake ornaments as genuine. Though appointed for four ICICI Bank branches, he allegedly visited other branches and valued counterfeit jewellery. Kharwade allegedly certified 155 pieces of fake gold jewellery. He was allegedly paid Rs 5,000 for each valuation report. He also introduced 38 people, including friends and relatives, as borrowers. Auditors Pramod Tete, Rajendra Shilankar and Dhananjay Dhomne are also under investigation.

 

They allegedly certified the fake ornaments as genuine during post-loan audits. The fraud came to light during a routine audit at the Manish Nagar branch. Several pledged ornaments were found to be fake. A detailed audit later found irregularities in 159 gold loan accounts across nine ICICI Bank branches. Loans worth more than Rs 23 crore were allegedly sanctioned against counterfeit gold between January 2023 and October 2025. The EOW had earlier arrested bank manager Pankaj Kekatpure, valuer Kharwade and auditors Tete and Shilankar. Dinesh Nagpure was also recently arrested and remanded to five days in police custody. The case was registered at Dhantoli Police Station on the complaint of ICICI Bank’s Nagpur Zonal Head Dhananjay Ramesh Thite. The investigation is being conducted under the guidance of DCP (Detection) Deepak Agrawal. API Santosh Tokalwad and the EOW team are investigating the case.