Bengaluru city police have arrested an assistant manager of a public-sector bank for allegedly stealing about 2.7 kg of gold ornaments worth Rs 4 crores kept in bank lockers by 15 customers and using the money for online gambling, The Times of India reported. The arrested accused has been identified as Kiran Kumar E, who was working at the Girinagar branch of Indian Bank.
Acting on a complaint filed by the branch's chief manager, Dileep Kumar, registered a police case against Kiran under Section 316 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (criminal breach of trust). The matter reportedly came to light on Feb. 2 when a woman customer, after closing her gold loan, found some of her pledged ornaments missing while collecting them.
Dileep told TOI that after the incident, the bank conducted a stock verification of 207 packets of pledged gold ornaments stored over the past year.
“We found that 24 packets had been tampered with. Gold from three packets was completely missing, while ornaments from 21 packets were partially stolen. During an internal inquiry, Kumar admitted that he had been stealing the gold in small quantities between June 2025 and January 2026,” he added.
Citing the police, the newspaper reported that the accused pledged the stolen ornaments with various private finance firms to get money, and about 1.2 kg of gold has been recovered so far.
Police also stated that some finance firms are yet to cooperate, and legal steps are being taken. They also added that only the manager and assistant manager had access to the lockers, and Kumar misused this access to commit the theft over several months.
The police also said that Kiran mainly targeted lockers that had not been accessed for a long period. Furthermore, the police also cautioned customers using locker facilities at any bank to check their valuable items on a regular basis.
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