ACT police are investigating an apparent scam in which tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewellery was allegedly stolen from two Nepalese jewellers in Canberra.<\/p>\n
Small business owner Amrit Sunar said the ordeal began when a group of people came into his jewellery store in the suburb of Phillip last Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“They were like regular customers. They did not look like thieves. They bought chains and bracelets, bank transferred the money and they showed me the screenshot of the receipt,” Mr Sunar said.<\/p>\n
“I checked my bank account and it hadn’t come, but it normally takes 24 hours \u2026 I took a picture of their screenshot.”<\/p>\n
But he said the money never arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Nepalese jewellery store is out-of-pocket almost $40,000. (ABC News: Joel Wilson)<\/p>\n
“It was $39,000 [worth of jewellery stolen] and we checked the CCTV and they also put a chain in their pocket too,” Mr Sunar said.<\/p>\n
“During the conversation, one guy was making me busy and one of the guys put it in his pocket.”<\/p>\n
Second jeweller targeted\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Sunar owns the business with his partner Karishma Hamal, who said the loss had been devastating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Hamal said the incident had come at a time of year when the business usually experienced growth.<\/p>\n
“The festivals of our community [are] coming [up], so losing that amount of investment in our business has affected us a lot.”<\/p>\n
Ms Hamal said a separate Nepalese jeweller in the suburb of Florey later contacted her and claimed to have had a similar experience.<\/p>\n
An ACT Policing spokesperson confirmed investigations into the two incidents were underway.<\/p>\n
Police have urged businesses not to hand over goods until they have received payment.<\/p>\n
“Funds deposited in bank accounts should be verified by checking the seller’s account \u2014 and not relying on the buyer’s transaction evidence,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“ACT Policing also suggests any electronic payments be made using instant transaction methods such as PayID or Osko.”<\/p>\n
Mr Sunar said he has provided CCTV footage and contact information for the alleged thieves to the police.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jeweller Amrit Sunar says he is a small business owner who cannot afford the loss. (ABC News: Joel Wilson)<\/p>\n
24-carat culture\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Sunar said he was aware of interstate Nepalese jewellers who had also experienced theft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said Nepalese jewellers were known to stock very expensive traditional gold pieces.<\/p>\n
“In our community, we only wear 24 carat pure gold \u2026 It’s a cultural thing. Maybe that’s why they are targeting Nepalese businesses,” Mr Sunar said.<\/p>\n
“It has been so stressful. We haven’t slept.<\/p>\n
“And sometimes we feel very bad. Sometimes we think let’s not do the business.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ACT police are investigating an apparent scam in which tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewellery was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[42182,64,63,99,2667,42178,42183,354,41947,42181,42179,42180,22864],"class_list":{"0":"post-49849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-act-policing","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-canberra","13":"tag-fake-receipt","14":"tag-florey-jeweller","15":"tag-fraud","16":"tag-jewellery","17":"tag-karishma-hamal","18":"tag-nepallese","19":"tag-phillip-jeweller","20":"tag-scam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}