Gold man killers were angered by his ponzi scheme

The Pune police arrested nine men within 24 hours in the murder case of Pune businessman Datta Phuge, better known as the ‘Gold Man’. The court has remanded all the accused in police custody in the case till July 21. According to reports, one of the murderers is Phuge’s son’s friend who was owed Rs 1.5 lakh.

In the past, Phuge, whose wife is a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader from Pune, had duped several people in a Ponzi chit fund scheme.

Twelve people had allegedly bludgeoned the 48-year-old businessman to death, on Friday. Phuge, a businessman from the industrial township of Pimpri-Chinchwad, had become the talk of the town after he presented himself with a ‘gold shirt’ weighing about 3.5 kg and worth Rs 1.27 crore, in 2012.

Police had arrested five of the accused based on the statement of Phuge’s 22-year-old son, Shubham, on Friday and on Saturday, they arrested four more accused in the case.

Senior PI, Navnath Ghogre of Dighe police station said, “The nine accused whom we could produce in the court on Saturday have been remanded in police custody till July 21. We will probe the others soon. It was revealed in the preliminary investigation that people killed him out of rage, because he had duped their money. Most of them were people he was close to. They trusted him and invested in the chit funds, but he didn’t return anyone’s money.”

At least 12 people attacked Phuge at an open ground in Dighi area at around 11.30 pm on Thursday night with stones and a sharp weapon, killing him on the spot.