Police on Saturday arrested two more persons in connection with the November 18 IIFL gold heist incident here and recovered some more looted gold.“One Saroj Kumar Prusty of Mangalabag and another Lalit Kumar Soni of Alamchand Bazaar were arrested and forwarded to court,” said city DCP Prateek Singh, adding that both are goldsmiths and were associates of Lala Amrit Ray of IIFL, who is already in police custody.

The number of persons apprehended in the multi-crore rupees gold heist case, has now mounted to ten. Earlier, two IIFL staffs and a manager of Manappuram Finance and six others, including four robbers had been arrested. Police have also recovered around 6.7 kg of more gold ornaments initially mortgaged with IIFL but later remortgaged in two city branch offices of Manappuram Finance. Police had earlier recovered around 3 kg of gold during multiple raids. Police Commissioner Sudhansu Sarangi told reporters at Bhubaneswar that the mastermind behind this heist Lala Amrit Ray and some other employees of IIFL were engaged in manipulating mortgaged gold ornaments since 2016. “Lala was having a lavish lifestyle by taking huge gold loans from Manappuram branches after remortgaging the already-mortgaged gold with IIFL,” he said. 

Sarangi further said the number of arrests is likely to increase as investigations so far have revealed involvement of more persons. Police would now keep the seized gold with the district armoury and the IIFL would get it back on the basis of court's direction.

IIFL sources assured that the customers would get back their gold as the ornaments have been insured.