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Over 1000 ten tola gold bars missing from private vaults

Freny Patel

An estimated 1,000 ten tola gold bars are reported missing from private vaults, even as bankers are taking stock of their bullion holdings stored there.

On May 6, after news of the missing silver broke out, bankers panicked fearing a raid by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on BVC Travel Agency Pvt Ltd's vault. This is where State Bank of India's (SBI) 39 tonnes of silver, valued at around Rs 300 million, was reported missing.

Bullion suppliers Credit Suisse and Harmony of South Africa asked that their stocks be transferrd to another private vault in the city, one belonging to Brinks. The case of missing 1,000 ten tola bars, comprising 750 biscuits belonging to Credit Suisse and 250 belonging to Harmony, came to light following this. The missing gold biscuits reportedly were part of a consignment belonging to ABN Amro.

The Dutch bank, however, denied it had any stocks with the defaulting vault.

In response to Business Standard's query on the impact of the shortfall, ABN Amro Bank said, "The bank does not have any stocks with BVC. BVC could be holding stocks on behalf of the suppliers. There is no liability or loss to ABN Amro Bank on account of the incident." BVC officials nevertheless maintained that the gold belonged to ABN Amro Bank.

A BVC official said that on March 26, Dewang Shah, manager at BVC in Ahmedabad, had given out 1,000 ten tola bars on telephonic instructions of the local SBI to a customer identified by the bank.

The public sector bank had promised to replenish the stock at a later date. But, apparently, SBI failed to do so. SBI officials were not available for any comment.

In the meantime, ViaMet, a global security company, informed its Indian agent, BVC to transfer the gold stock from its Ahmedabad vaults to another private vault in the city belonging to Brinks.

ViaMet, Brinks and Brambles are the world's biggest agencies for the safe keeping of precious metals, diamonds and travellers cheques. Shah reportedly tried committing suicide on May 6 when the bullion stock was supposed to be transferred.

In his suicide note, he stated that he had taken 1,000 ten tola bars from BVC vaults, which allegedly belonged to Standard Chartered Bank.

As Stanchart's bullion turnover is relatively higher, he replaced this stock with that allegedly belonging to ABN Amro Bank.

According to BVC officials, SBI never replenished the stock and this accounted for the shortfall at the time of transferring the bullion to another private vault.

ABN Amro and ViaMet officials were in Ahmedabad to sort out the matter. The foreign bank has not taken any action as yet and industry sources stated that as it is covered by overseas insurance, there would be no question of any loss.

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