SEBI Bans Arshad Warsi, His Wife and 57 Others from Stock Market for 5 Years in Sadhna Broadcast Scam

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has banned actor Arshad Warsi, his wife Maria Goretti, and 57 other people from trading in the stock market for one to five years. This punishment comes after they were involved in misleading YouTube videos that told people to buy shares of a company called Sadhna Broadcast.

According to the directive released on Thursday, SEBI has fined both Warsi and Goretti Rs 5 lakh each and banned them from the stock market for one year.

The regulator has also fined 57 other people amounts ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 5 crore. This includes the owners of Sadhna Broadcast (now called Crystal Business System Ltd).

SEBI has ordered all 59 people to return their illegal earnings of Rs 58.01 crore, plus 12% interest per year, which they must pay together until everything is settled.

According to SEBI’s investigation, Arshad made illegal profits of Rs 41.70 lakh, while his wife made Rs 50.35 lakh from these activities.

The final order named Gaurav Gupta, Rakesh Kumar Gupta, and Manish Mishra as the main people behind this fraud. The order also found that Subhash Aggarwal, a director at SBL’s share transfer company, acted as a middleman between Manish Mishra and the company owners.

These people were the key players who planned and carried out the cheating scheme, according to SEBI.

SEBI also noted that Peeyush Agarwal and Lokesh Shah let others use their trading accounts for the fraudulent activities of Manish Mishra and SBL’s owners.

As a dealer at Choice and the owner of the stockbroker’s Delhi branch, respectively, they played important roles in helping manipulate the stock price extensively.

Jatin Shah was crucial in implementing the scheme, while other people either helped with the fraudulent activities or joined in to make quick money, as mentioned in the order.

According to the 109-page order, SEBI said that these people acted as information middlemen or helped execute fake trades without trading the stock through their own accounts.

SEBI explained that the organised scheme was carried out in two coordinated steps. First, connected people and company insiders traded among themselves to slowly increase the stock price and create fake market activity.

The small trades had a big impact on the price, mainly because very few people were trading the stock. This enabled the participants to drive up the stock price with very limited money for trading.

Following the promotion, videos were produced and distributed on a variety of YouTube channels, such as Moneywise, The Advisor, and Profit Yatra, which were created by Manish Mishra, according to the order.

These video presentations represented that SBL is a good investment opportunity and were carefully timed to support and boost the fake market activities.