Rs.23 crore gold loan scam has been uncovered in ICICI Bank in Nagpur, Maharashtra. The gold loan fraud was revealed in an internal audit conducted by ICICI Bank. It was found that fake gold has been deposited across nine branches of ICICI Bank in Nagpur.
Acting on a complaint filed by Dhananjay Ramesh Thite, an employee at ICICI Bank’s Zonal Office, the Dhantoli police has registered a case of fraud and initiated an investigation. The alleged fraud was executed between January 2023 and October 2025..
The alleged scam came to light when the bank conducted an internal audit of its ‘Gold Loan’ portfolio. During the exercise, it was discovered that the ornaments pledged across nine different branches of the bank were not actually gold, but were instead fake.
According to reports, a total of 159 account holders fraudulently availed themselves of these loans. The bank has issued a statement, confirming that they are investigating a total of 159 such account holders.
How Gold Loan is sanctioned?
Gold Loans in India can be availed very easily. Now, almost all the Banks have launched online gold loan facilities via which customers can get a loan easily within 10 minutes. The customer needs to deposit his loan in the bank. A goldsmith checks the purity and value of gold, and Banks sanction a gold loan upto 80% of the value of the Gold.
If the Gold in ICICI Bank branches is found to be fake, it means the Goldsmith did not check the gold properly, or he might have committed fraud intentionally. The details would be released only after the investigation gets completed.
