The investigation has been started for multi-crore fraud which took place in Canara Bank, Machilipatnam Branch. The Krishna district police have begun probe in this case.

According to the bank authorities, "gold worth about Rs. 2.9 crore was robbed, and many records tampered in the bank since a few years."

Canara Bank General Manager J. Jaya Raju said that "Appraiser, Ghantasala Venkata Naga Rama Subramanyam had replaced gold jewelry deposited in the bank with fake ornaments. The bank officials who conducted a departmental inquiry into the fraud found that gold jewelry, weighing about 15 kgs, was missing from the lockers. The accused also forged the signatures of some accounts."

Speaking to The Hindu, Krishna district Superintendent of Police G. Vijay Kumar said: "based on the complaint lodged by Mr. Raju, the Robertsonpet police registered a case on Monday, and took up an investigation."

Machilipatnam Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) D. Surya Sravan Kumar said: "as per the bank officials, the appraiser reopened some old accounts, which were closed, by forging the signatures of the customers and duped the bank."

“We are trying to find out on how much of amount was swindled, gold missing, since how long the fraud was going on in the branch, any other bank staff were involved in the scam and other details,” said the DSP.

The gold jewelry which was stolen from the bank was mortgaged by the appraiser in various private finance and gold mortgaging companies and they took loans.

The SP said "police, who seized some documents from Canara Bank, are probing the role of the finance companies which extended loans to the accused. The investigation officers are trying to recover the missing gold ornaments from the private firms."

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BY M.DIVYA SRI