The police are tracing the money trail and investigating whether more people were involved in the conspiracy. (File Photo)The Peenya police in Bengaluru on Wednesday arrested three men, including a bank gold appraiser, who were allegedly running a fake gold loan racket, which came to light during the investigation of a city businessman’s complaint that he was cheated out of Rs 1.5 crore on the promise of bank-auctioned gold. The police said the arrested men—Nagesh, 31, Shashidhar, 38, and Jagadish, 48—conspired to fraudulently obtain gold loans by pledging imitation jewellery falsely certified as genuine. According to investigators, Nagesh and Shashidhar created around 15 bank accounts in the names of acquaintances by offering them money and claiming their jewellery would be pledged to secure loans. Jagadish, whose job was to verify pledged gold, allegedly certified fake jewellery as genuine, enabling the bank to sanction loans that the accused later siphoned off.