The Hindu : Woman convincingly conned

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 22, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Woman convincingly conned

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JAN. 21. All that glitters is not gold. Indeed, copper with gold polish can also glitter! And it cost Rs. 5 lakhs for a woman to realise this truth after she thought she had struck a brilliant deal by buying 2,500 gold coins from "DMRC labourers" at a princely rate of Rs. 200 a piece.

The incident was reported from Shalimar Bagh in North-West Delhi on January 15 when three persons approached Amita Dhavan, a resident of Sector-13 Rohini at Planet Eye Opticians, the shop she runs at Pitampura, with what they told her was the "chance of a lifetime''.

The duo handed her the two gold coins, roughly the size of a five-rupee coin, for examination and offered to sell it to her. They told the woman that they were labourers working at the Metro Rail construction site and it was during digging that they had struck gold. In order to give credence to their story, they were clad in poor attire and looked haggard.

Careful not to be misled by the labourers and at the same time not the one to let the "golden" opportunity go abegging, Ms. Dhavan decided to get the coins checked for their genuineness by a nearby jeweller. The coins proved to be of high quality. Ms. Dhavan got ready for a deal.

But more was in store as the duo told her that they possessed an entire pot of such gold coins. Satisfied at the quality of the coins, she struck a deal of Rs. 200 for each coin and decided to buy 2,500 pieces.

Four days later, the duo duly returned with a bag full of coins. Ms. Dhavan clinched the deal by paying Rs. 5 lakhs for 2,500 coins. But if a delighted Ms. Dhavan thought that she would never meet them again and keep selling the gold coins happily ever after, it was not to be. She now wants the Shalimar Bagh police to trace the "angels with gold" and retrieve her money.

The realisation that they were copper coins polished with gold came when Ms. Dhavan told her husband, who was not aware of the deal. The couple decided to get those coins checked again and they turned out to be copper. They weighed around 2 gm and had King Edward depicted on them.

Meanwhile, the Shalimar Bagh police have registered a case of cheating and are investigating further.

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