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In a shocking betrayal of decades of service, thousands of retired West Central Railway (WCR) employees discovered that the "silver" commemorative medals they were awarded upon retirement were nothing more than worthless gold-plated copper.
The massive fraud, which has sent shockwaves through the Railway Board, was uncovered not by internal audits but by a retired employee trying to navigate financial hardship by selling off the silver coin he had received on his retirement from the department.
The goldsmith’s revelation
The scandal came to light after DK Gautam, a former WCR staffer who retired in August, alerted his department. Like thousands of others, Gautam was presented with a "Gold-Plated Silver Medal" as a memento of his career. He kept it as a cherished keepsake until a sudden financial need forced him to take the coin to a local goldsmith to sell it.
The jeweller informed Gautam that the "silver" coin was a sham. A laboratory test later confirmed the audacity of the fraud. The coin contained a measly 0.23 per cent silver, while the remaining 99.77 per cent was pure copper.
The scale of the 'copper scam'
WCR Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) Harshit Srivastava confirmed that the fraud involves approximately 3,600 coins. According to the investigation, the WCR placed an order in January 2023 for 3,640 gold-plated silver medals. The coins were supposed to be 99.9 per cent pure silver. The National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) found they were almost entirely copper. Fraudsters allegedly pocketed Rs 2,500 per coin, totalling a staggering loss of nearly Rs 91 lakh for the WCR alone.
The culprit: A repeat offender?
The finger of blame points squarely at M/s Wable Diamonds, an Indore-based firm. Following the NABL report, the Railways officially blacklisted the company.
However, this isn't the firm's first brush with scandal. Investigations revealed a similar "fake silver" complaint filed in September 2025 at the Northern Railway’s Alambagh General Store in Lucknow. In that instance, an FIR was lodged against the owner, Vipul Jain, and M/s TUV India Private Limited, the third-party firm responsible for certifying the quality of the supply.
National fallout and police action
The Railway Board has now been jolted into action, ordering an investigation across all railway zones to see if this "copper-for-silver" swap has been happening nationwide for the last two years.
In Bhopal, the Railway Vigilance Department has approached the Bajaria Police Station to initiate criminal proceedings. "We ordered coins that should have been 99.9 per cent silver, but our vigilance department found 99.9 per cent copper instead," stated Sub-Inspector Arvind Kumar Singh.
