It sounds like a scene from a film. A Mumbai jeweller travels to Vadodara to show a big consignment of gold to a local showroom, steps away briefly, and comes back to find the jewellery gone. Police in Vadodara have now registered a case, and the search is on.

What the complaint says

According to the reports, the incident happened at Ambika Jewellers on Vadodara’s Waghodia Road. A Mumbai-based gold trader says the shop’s operator, named in the complaint as Bhavik Soni, invited him to Vadodara to show gold jewellery for the showroom. The trader says that while he went to the bathroom, a man named Bhavik left with around 5 kg of gold, valued at about ₹8 crore. A second report puts the value of the jewellery at ₹8.28 crore, and describes the case as a large inter-state fraud carried out under the guise of buying jewellery for the shop.

These are the complainant’s allegations, and the accused has not been heard from in anything we have seen.

A planned operation?

The trader’s account suggests the whole episode may have been set up in advance. One report says the shop’s operator and an accomplice together called the Mumbai trader to Vadodara, which, if true, would point to a plan and not an opportunistic theft. Your original report also says police suspect a pre-planned operation involving a local jeweller and two unidentified men. We could not independently confirm the two men, so we are treating that as an unverified detail.

What the police are doing

A case has been registered at Bapod police station on the trader’s complaint, and police have begun an investigation. We have not seen any report of arrests, recoveries or CCTV findings, and the reports we reviewed give no official statement from police. We will add those details as soon as they are confirmed.

What we can’t confirm

Several details in circulation do not match what we found. The exact weight, the timeline of “12 minutes”, and the link to a showroom launch are not in the reports we reviewed. The weight is given as about 5 kg in one report, and the value as ₹8 crore in one and ₹8.28 crore in another. We would rather wait for the FIR or a police statement than repeat figures that may change.

Why this matters to the jewellery trade

Large gold deals between cities are often built on trust, with traders carrying valuable stock to show to buyers, sometimes on little more than a phone call and a reputation. A case like this, if the allegations are proved, is exactly the kind of thing that makes everyone in the trade more cautious. Traders may want to confirm the identity and standing of buyers, insist on secure handling, and keep a record of every handover. That is general advice, not a finding about this case.

What happens next

Police are expected to record statements, check CCTV footage and trace the people named in the complaint.