₹87.81 lakh of gold never returns from a Wadaj workshop
A C.G. Road jeweller handed 646.470 grams in 17 sets to a Nava Wadaj workshop on 22 December 2025. Two days later three mobile numbers went dead and the rented shop was empty.
By The Counter Desk
What changed
The shop emptied overnight. A C.G. Road jeweller gave 17 gold sets worth ₹87.81 lakh to a Nava Wadaj workshop for stone-setting. Two days later the shop was gone.
What it means
- If you send work out to a karigar: The first three sets came back on time. That is what the receipt bought.
- If you underwrite trade credit: Nothing here was bonded, insured or held against security. A receipt was the whole protection.
- What this is not: A conviction, a recovery, or a figure any court or valuer has tested. One complainant's valuation and one police complaint.
Key figures
| Value of the 17 setsthe complainant's own figure | ₹87.81 lakh |
|---|---|
| Weight handed over17 gold sets and earrings | 646.470g |
| Implied value a gramfinished sets with stones, not a metal price | ₹13,583 |
| Handover to published report22 December 2025 to 11 October 2026 | 10 months |
Source: From Divya Bhaskar's report published 11 October 2026 (JSON-LD datePublished 2026-10-11T14:01:24+05:30). Every figure is as stated in a police complaint by the jeweller who says he lost the goods. Nothing is adjudicated, no arrest is reported, and the three people named have not been heard.
A receipt bought the trust
Three sets first. Dipen Ashokbhai Soni, his wife Khushbu and their partner Parth Jigneshbhai Soni ran S.S. Ornaments in Nava Wadaj. They finished three sets on time in December 2025.
Then seventeen more. On 22 December the jeweller handed over 17 gold sets and earrings for stone-setting. Khushbu Soni issued the receipt, the newspaper reports.
Ten at night. Asked for the goods back on 24 December, Dipen said to come at 10 pm. All three mobile numbers were switched off after that.
| Date | What the complaint says happened | Figure |
|---|---|---|
| December 2025 | First three sets finished on time | 3 sets |
| 22 December 2025 | 17 sets and earrings handed over, receipt issued | ₹87.81 lakh / 646.470g |
| 24 December 2025 | Return asked for, told to come at 10 pm | 3 numbers switched off |
| 25 December 2025 | Rented shop found cleared, New Ranip home locked | No recovery |
| 11 October 2026 | Complaint at Wadaj police station reported | About 10 months on |
Notes on this table
The arithmetic, printed so it can be checked: ₹87.81 lakh against 646.470 grams is 8,781,000/646.470 = ₹13,583 a gram. That is not a gold rate. The work handed over was jadtar, stone-setting, so the complainant's valuation of finished sets contains metal, stones and making together, and no breakdown is given. Carat Capital has not benchmarked it against a dated Indian gold rate and prints no comparison. The ten-month figure is the gap between the 22 December 2025 handover and the 11 October 2026 report; the newspaper gives no reason for it.
Two addresses, both empty
The shop went. The rented shop in Nava Wadaj had been cleared the night before, the jeweller found on enquiring the next day.
The house too. The three had a residence at New Ranip. That was found locked as well.
Wadaj station now. The complaint sits with Wadaj police, who have begun investigating. No arrest, no recovery and no charge sheet is reported.
The gap is ten months
December to October. The handover was 22 December 2025 and the report is dated 11 October 2026. The newspaper gives no reason for the gap.
Nothing was secured. Stone-setting work moves finished stock to a third party against a slip. No bond, insurance or security appears anywhere in the account.
What to watch
- Not announcedWhether Wadaj police make an arrest or recover any of the 17 sets. Neither is reported.
- OngoingWhether the complaint produces a charge sheet naming all three, including the partner who did not issue the receipt.
- OngoingWhether any Gujarat jewellers' association publishes guidance on securing karigar consignments. None appears in the account.
The story so far
Go deeper
What would change this call
A recovery, or a court. Everything priced here is one complainant's valuation inside one police complaint, and the three people named have not been heard. A charge sheet, a seizure of the 17 sets, or an independent valuation would each change the reading. So would a reason for the ten-month gap between the handover and the report, which the newspaper does not give.
Why stone-setting work leaves a jeweller unsecured
Jadtar is stone-setting, and in the Indian trade it is almost always sent out. A retailer with a showroom does not keep a setter on the premises; he hands finished or semi-finished gold to a karigar's workshop, which sets the stones and returns the piece. The transaction is ordinary, it happens thousands of times a week in Gujarat alone, and the whole of the retailer's protection is normally a receipt in the workshop's own hand. There is no bond, no escrow, no bailment insurance in common use and no registry of who holds whose stock. That is why the weight matters more than the money in a case like this one: 646.470 grams is a figure both sides can agree on and a court can test, while a valuation of finished sets carrying stones is an assertion until someone appraises them. It is also why the receipt is the only document in the account. When a workshop vacates its premises, the retailer is left holding a piece of paper against a counterparty whose address has stopped being an address, and the loss converts from a trade debt into a police matter with nothing securing it.
Method
One primary, read in the original Gujarati and scoped to the report's own body paragraphs. The page was fetched at press time with a browser identity, 200, 429,097 bytes, saved to newsroom/sources/2026-10-12/desk/ahmedabad.html. Exact-string counts on the saved file, run against the raw bytes rather than a summary, with hit counts: '87.81' 18; '646.470' 10; 'વાડજ' (Wadaj) 31; 'એસ.એસ. ઓર્નામેન્ટ્સ' (S.S. Ornaments) 10; 'લબ્ધી ઓર્નામેન્ટ્સ' (Labdhi Ornaments) 2; 'સંજય શાહ' (Sanjay Shah) 2; 'દિપેન અશોકભાઈ સોની' 2; 'ખુશ્બુ સોની' 4; 'પાર્થ જીગ્નેશભાઈ સોની' 2; '22 ડિસેમ્બર 2025' 2; '24 ડિસેમ્બર, 2025' 2; 'ન્યુ રાણીપ' (New Ranip) 2; 'પ્રહલાદનગર' (Prahladnagar) 2; 'રાત્રે 10 વાગ્યે' (at 10 pm) 2; 'વાડજ પોલીસ સ્ટેશન' (Wadaj police station) 2. JSON-LD datePublished reads 2026-10-11T14:01:24+05:30, confirmed in the raw bytes. Extraction stops before the page's Top News and weather rails, which carry unrelated Gujarat items, temperatures and no gold figures; none of their numbers is used here. The ₹13,583 a gram is Carat Capital's own division, printed in the table note so it can be checked, and is not taken from the source. ADVANCE ON THE BUREAU'S OWN READ, disclosed because it changes the story: the Bureau slate of 2026-10-12 recorded that the report gave no calendar date for the disappearance distinct from the report date, the fuller timeline sitting behind the outlet's app prompt. The dated paragraphs are in fact present in the raw bytes and give December 2025, 22 December 2025 and 24 December 2025, which is why this article is built on a ten-month-old loss rather than an overnight one. Archive check by entity, date and event against website/content/articles.json, not by figure: '87.81' 0 hits, '646.470' 0, 'Wadaj' 0, 'S.S. Ornaments' 0, 'Labdhi' 0. No prior Carat Capital story covers this complaint or these parties, so the verdict is NEW on entity and on period. The two pieces cited as prior coverage are different events with different parties: the Surat advance-fee case of 11 October 2026 and this paper's Bhuj bullion piece of the same date. No second source exists for a single police complaint and none is claimed; no Gujarat police release was found for it.