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Journalism of Courage
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) Thursday restrained actor Arshad Warsi, his wife Maria Goretti and 29 others from accessing the securities market for allegedly using YouTube channels to manipulate stocks.
Sebi said they used misleading YouTube videos to create “false content” on select scrips, generating artificial interest. This was followed up with paid marketing campaigns for additional reach. The increased interest in these scrips drove up the share price and helped the individuals to offload their holdings at inflated prices, Sebi said in its order.
In the interim order, the capital markets regulator also impounded Rs 41.85 crore which these 31 individuals gained by involving in fraudulent trades.
Warsi made a profit of Rs 29.43 lakh and his wife gained Rs 37.58 lakh, the order showed.
“All the Noticees are restrained from buying, selling or dealing in securities either directly or indirectly, in any manner whatsoever until further orders,” Sebi’s whole time member Ananth Narayan G wrote in the order.
He directed all the 31 individuals to open an escrow account with a scheduled commercial bank and deposit the impounded amount within 15 days.
The markets regulator started investigation in the matter after it received complaints of alleged price manipulation and offloading of shares by certain entities in the scrip of Sadhna Broadcast between April 27, 2022 to September 30, 2022.
There was a spurt in the price and volume of scrip of Sadhna Broadcast between April 2022 to mid-July 2022 and a significant portion of the volume during this period was the result of the trades executed by some of these individuals, Sebi said.
In July 2022, videos about the company were uploaded on two YouTube channels: The Advisor and Moneywise. The videos recommended that Sadhna Broadcast was going to be taken over by Adani Group and it is moving from TV production to movie production.
“These YouTube videos peddled false and misleading news to recommend that investors should buy the stock,” Sebi said.
