Man held for selling fake Mughal-era coins

A 55-year-old man has been arrested for selling fake Mughal-era coins to unsuspecting people.u00a0Acting on a complaint, a team from the Lashkar police station seized a huge cache of fake medieval jewellery and coins from the outskirts of Nagpur city.u00a0

The raid followed a complaint filed by a retired naval officer, Commodore Devendra Sood (63).u00a0Sood was allegedly duped of Rs 5 lakh by one Khetaram Mansingh Pawar. He was sold some gold-plated coins andu00a0

was told they were from the Mughal era.u00a0

While Pawar was caught in Nagpur, his accomplices, including his wife Atribai and son Prabhu, are at large.

The complainant was befriended by the accused some days ago at MG Road in Camp and was shown a few genuine coins. Pawar allegedly claimed the coins were procured from an excavation site.u00a0

After the coins were seen by a few jewellers and declared genuine, the accused earned the victim's trust. The accused then won his sympathy by saying his financial condition was precarious and that he would like to immediately sell the coins.

"He said his mother was ill and sister needed to be married off and the victim believed it since the jewellers also vouched for the gold coins' purity," a police officer said. u00a0"While a few sample coins are pure gold, the rest are cleverly forged to look archaic and of intrinsic value."

The Lashkar police station team left for Nagpur on January 25 and the arrest was made on January 28 in collaboration with the Nagpur City Crime Branch.u00a0Talking to mediapersons, Senior Police Inspector Sushma Chavan said the arrested man was from Nagpur but operated from other cities in the state.

"They also change their SIM cards after every con job, which makes it difficult to trace them. We are also trying to figure out the manufacturing and welding process used for such forgery. They apply turmeric and tamarind on the fake brass coins, which gives them a relic-like look," Chavan said.