Monday, February 14, 2011

India's biggest scams

1.Byrraju Ramalinga Raju.

The biggest corporate scam in Indiahas come from one of the most respected businessmen.

Satyam founder Byrraju Ramalinga Raju resigned as its chairman after admitting to cooking up the account books.

His efforts to fill the "fictitious assets with real ones" through Maytas acquisition failed, after which he decided to confess the crime.

With a fraud involving about Rs 8,000 crore (Rs 80 billion), Satyam is heading for more trouble in the days ahead.

On Wednesday, India's fourth largest IT company lost a staggering Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) in market capitalisation as investors reacted sharply and dumped shares, pushing down the scrip by 78 per cent to Rs 39.95 on the Bombay Stock Exchange..

The NYSE-listed firm could also face regulator action in the US.

"I am now prepared to subject myself to the laws of the land and face consequences thereof," Raju said in a letter to SEBI and the Board of Directors, while giving details of how the profits were inflated over the years and his failed attempts to "fill the fictitious assets with real ones."

Raju said the company's balance sheet as of September 30 carries "inflated (non-existent) cash and bank balances of Rs 5,040 crore (Rs 50.40 billion) as against Rs 5,361 crore (Rs 53.61 billion) reflected in the books."

2.Harshad Mehta.

He was known as the 'Big Bull'. However, his bull run did not last too long.

He triggered a rise in the Bombay Stock Exchange in the year 1992 by trading in shares at a premium across many segments.

Taking advantages of the loopholes in the banking system, Harshad and his associates triggered a securities scam diverting funds to the tune of Rs 4000 crore (Rs 40 billion) from the banks to stockbrokers between April 1991 to May 1992.

Harshad Mehta worked with the New India Assurance Company before he moved ahead to try his luck in the stock markets. Mehta soon mastered the tricks of the trade and set out on dangerous game plan.

Mehta has siphoned off huge sums of money from several banks and millions of investors were conned in the process. His scam was exposed, the markets crashed and he was arrested and banned for life from trading in the stock markets.

He was later charged with 72 criminal offences.

A Special Court also sentenced Sudhir Mehta, Harshad Mehta's brother, and six others, including four bank officials, to rigorous imprisonment (RI) ranging from 1 year to 10 years on the charge of duping State Bank of India to the tune of Rs 600 crore (Rs 6 billion) in connection with the securities scam that rocked the financial markets in 1992. He died in 2002 with many litigations still pending against him.

3.Ketan Parekh.

Ketan Parekh followed Harshad Mehta's footsteps to swindle crores of rupees from banks. A chartered accountant he used to run a family business, NH Securities.

Ketan however had bigger plans in mind. He targetted smaller exchanges like the Allahabad Stock Exchange and the Calcutta Stock Exchange, and bought shares in fictitious names.

His dealings revolved around shares of ten companies like Himachal Futuristic, Global Tele-Systems, SSI Ltd, DSQ Software, Zee Telefilms, Silverline, Pentamedia Graphics and Satyam Computer (K-10 scrips).

Ketan borrowed Rs 250 crore from Global Trust Bank to fuel his ambitions. Ketan alongwith his associates also managed to get Rs 1,000 crore from the Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank.

According to RBI regulations, a broker is allowed a loan of only Rs 15 crore (Rs 150 million). There was evidence of price rigging in the scrips of Global Trust Bank, Zee Telefilms, HFCL, Lupin Laboratories, Aftek Infosys and Padmini Polymer.

4.C R Bhansali.

The Bhansali scam resulted in a loss of over Rs 1,200 crore (Rs 12 billion).

He first launched the finance company CRB Capital Markets, followed by CRB Mutual Fund and CRB Share Custodial Services. He ruled like a financial wizard 1992 to 1996 collecting money from the public through fixed deposits, bonds and debentures. The money was transferred to companies that never existed.

CRB Capital Markets raised a whopping Rs 176 crore in three years. In 1994 CRB Mutual Funds raised Rs 230 crore and Rs 180 crore came via fixed deposits. Bhansali also succeeded to to raise about Rs 900 crore from the markets.

However, his good days did not last long, after 1995 he received several jolts. Bhansali tried borrowing more money from the market. This led to a financial crisis.

It became difficult for Bhansali to sustain himself. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) refused banking status to CRB and he was in the dock. SBI was one of the banks to be hit by his huge defaults.

5.Cobbler scam.

Sohin Daya, son of a former Sheriff of Mumbai, was the main accused in the multi-crore shoes scam. Daya of Dawood Shoes, Rafique Tejani of Metro Shoes, and Kishore Signapurkar of Milano Shoes were arrested for creating several leather co-operative societies which did not exist.

They availed loans of crores of rupees on behalf of these fictitious societies. The scam was exposed in 1995. The accused created a fictitious cooperative society of cobblers to take advantage of government loans through various schemes.

Officials of the Maharashtra State Finance Corporation, Citibank, Bank of Oman, Dena Bank, Development Credit Bank, Saraswat Co-operative Bank, and Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait were also charge sheeted.

6.Dinesh Dalmia.

Dinesh Dalmia was the managing director of DSQ Software Limited when the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested him for his involvement in a stocks scam of Rs 595 crore (Rs 5.95 billion).

Dalmia's group included DSQ Holdings Ltd, Hulda Properties and Trades Ltd, and Powerflow Holding and Trading Pvt Ltd.

Dalmia resorted to illegal ways to make money through the partly paid shares of DSQ Software Ltd, in the name of New Vision Investment Ltd, UK, and unallotted shares in the name of Dinesh Dalmia Technology Trust.

Investigation showed that 1.30 crore (13 million) shares of DSQ Software Ltd had not been listed on any stock exchange.

7.Abdul Karim Telgi.

He paid for his own education at Sarvodaya Vidyalaya by selling fruits and vegetables on trains.

He is today famous (or infamous) for being he man behind one of .

The Telgi case is another big scam that rocked India. The fake stamp racket involving Abdul Karim Telgi was exposed in 2000. The loss is estimated to be Rs 171.33 crore (Rs 1.71 billion), it was initially pegged to be Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 bilion), which was later clarified by the CBI as an exaggerated figure.

In 1994, Abdul Karim Telgi acquired a stamp paper license from the Indian government and began printing fake stamp papers.

Telgi bribed to get into the government security press in Nashik and bought special machines to print fake stamp papers.

Telgi's networked spread across 13 states involving 176 offices, 1,000 employees and 123 bank accounts in 18 cities.

8.Virendra Rastogi.

Virendra Rastogi chief executive of RBG Resources was charged with for deceiving banks worldwide of an estimated $1 billion.

9.The UTI Scam.
Former UTI chairman P S Subramanyam and two executive directors -- M M Kapur and S K Basu -- and a stockbroker Rakesh G Mehta, were arrested in connection with the 'UTI scam'.

UTI had purchased 40,000 shares of Cyberspace between September 25, 2000, and September 25, 2000 for about Rs 3.33 crore (Rs 33.3 million) from Rakesh Mehta when there were no buyers for the scrip. The market price was around Rs 830.

The CBI said it was the conspiracy of these four people which resulted in the loss of Rs 32 crore (Rs 320 million). Subramanyam, Kapur and Basu had changed their stance on an investment advice of the equities research cell of UTI.

The promoter of Cyberspace Infosys, Arvind Johari was arrested in connection with the case. The officals were paid Rs 50 lakh (Rs 5 million) by Cyberspace to promote its shares.

He also received Rs 1.18 crore (Rs 11.8 million) from the company through a circuitous route for possible rigging the Cyberspace counter.



He was also involved in the duty-drawback scam to the tune of Rs 43 crore (Rs 430 milion) in India.

The CBI said that five companies, whose directors were the four Rastogi brothers -- Subash, Virender, Ravinde and Narinder -- exported bicycle parts during 1995-96 to Russiaand Hong Kongby heavily over invoicing the value of goods for claiming excess duty draw back from customs.


10.Uday Goyal.

Uday Goyal, managing director of Arrow Global Agrotech Ltd, was yet another fraudster who cheated investors promising high returns through plantations.

Goyal conned investors to the tune of over Rs 210 crore (Rs 2..10 billion). He was finally arrested.

The plantation scam was exposed when two investors filed a complaint when they failed to get the promised returns.

Over 43,300 persons had fallen into Goyal's trap. Several criminal complaints were filed with the Economic Offences Wing.

The company's directors and their relatives had misused the investors' money to buy properties. The High Court asked the company to sell its properties and repay its investors.
 

Sunday, February 13, 2011

What Harshad Mehta did? – The Stock Scam


In the early 1990s, the banks in India had to maintain a particular amount of their deposits in government bonds. This ratio was called SLR ( Statutory Liquidity Ratio). Each bank had to submit a detailed sheet of its balance at the end of the day and also show that there was a sufficient amount invested in government bonds. Now, the government decided that the banks need not show their details on each day, they need to do it only on Fridays. Also, there was an extra clause that said that the average %age of bond holdings over the week needs to be above the SLR but the daily %age need not be so. That meant that banks would sell bonds in the earlier part of the week and then buy bonds back at the end of the week. The capital freed in the starting of the week could then be invested. Now, at the end of the week many banks would be desperate to buy bonds back. This is where the broker comes in. The broker knew which bank had more bonds (called ‘plus’) and which has less than the required amount (called ‘short’). He then acts as the middleman between the two banks. Harshad Mehta was one such broker. He worked as a middle man between many banks for a long time and gained the trust of the banks’ senior management. Lets say that there are two banks A (short) and B (plus). Now what Harshad Mehta did was that he told the banker at A that he was dealing with many banks and hence did not know who would he deal in the end with. So he said that the bank should write the cheque in his name rather than the other bank (which was forbidden by law), so that he could make the payment to whichever bank was required. Since he was a trusted broker, the banks agreed. Then, going back to the example of bank A and B, he took the money from A and went to B and said that he would pay the money on the next day to B but he needed the bonds right now (for A). But he offered a 15 % return for bank B for the one day extension. Bank B readily agreed with this since it was getting such a nice return
Now since Harshad Mehta was dealing with many banks at the same time he could then keep some capital with him at all times. For eg. He takes money from A on Monday, and tells B that he’ll pay on Tuesday, then he takes money from C on Tuesday and tells D that he’ll pay on Wednesday and the money he gets from C is paid to B and as a result he has some working capital with him at all times if this goes on with other banks throughout the week. The banks at that time were not allowed to invest in the equity markets. Harshad Mehta had very cleverly squeezed some capital out of the banking system. This capital he invested in the stock market and managed to stoke a massive booming Monday
He took the price of ACC from 200 to 9000.Thats an increase of 4400%!!!The market went up like crazy and the bulls were on a mad run. Since he had to book profits in the end, the day he sold was the day when the market crashed. The same day Vijaya Bank chairman committed suicide by jumping from the top of the banks’ office. The chairman knew that when it would become public that he had written cheques in the name of Mehta, he would be dead meat. One rather unknown fact about this scam is that there was a very important player in this scam who managed to keep a very low profile. That man was Nimesh Shah. He was just as involved as Harshad Mehta but he knew how keep out of the hands of the law. Nimesh Shah still deals in the stock market and is known to be a heavy player. Harshad Mehta is now dead. It is rumored that when he died, he still had 10% of ACC shares with him.

Largest Stock Exchanges in Asia


Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) - It was listed in 2000 and is one of the world’s largest exchange owners based on the market capitalization of its shares. HKEx offers a variety of securities and derivatives such as shares, futures, options, Exchange Traded Funds, and structured products.

Bombay Stock Exchange (India) – It is the oldest stock exchange in Asia. In August 2010, the equity market capitalization of the companies listed on the Exchange was US$1.78 trillion, making it the 4th largest stock exchange in Asia.

Tokyo Stock Exchange (Japan) - It is the second biggest stock exchange in the world by aggregate market capitalization of its listed companies. Members of the Tokyo Stock Exchange include Allied Telesis, Banc of America Securities, BarclaysCapital, Bear Stearns, BNP Paribas, Century Securities, Credit Suisse First Boston,Daiwa Securities, Dresdner Kleinwort, etc.

Osaka Securities Exchange (Japan) – It is the second largest securities exchange in the country, in terms of amount of business handled. The Exchange provides a marketplace for transactions of securities, securities related
 futures and options.

Karachi Stock Exchange (Pakistan) - It is the largest and oldest stock exchange in the nation, located in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. On 26 December 2007, the KSE 100 Index reached its highest value ever and closed at 14,814.85 points.

Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE, China) - It is the world’s sixth biggest stock market by market capitalization at US$2.4 trillion as of August 2010. In 2009, listed companies raised RMB 334.315 billion on the Exchange through IPO and new share placement.