Indian law enforcement authorities have started a probe intoalleged fraud at a CanaraBank branch in which gold worth about 29 million rupees was stolenand records were tampered, The Hindu reportedOct. 12.

Bank authorities revealed that 29 million rupees worth ofgold is missing from its Machilipatnam branch in the Indian state of AndhraPradesh. The bank alleges that appraiser Ghantasala Venkata Naga RamaSubramanyam replaced gold jewelry deposited in the bank with fake ones.

Subramanyam also reportedly reopened a number of oldaccounts by forging the signatures of the customers. He also allegedlymortgaged the stolen jewelry in other private finance and gold mortgagingcompanies in exchange for loans.

The police are looking into the finance companies and aretrying to recover the missing jewelry.

As of Oct. 12, US$1was equivalent to 66.77 Indian rupees.