MUMBAI: Capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), on Thursday, barred 45 entities, including actor Arshad Warsi, wife Maria Goretti and others, from the securities market in cases related to manipulating the share prices of two companies through uploading misleading videos on YouTube channels.
The cases pertain to uploading misleading videos on YouTube channels and recommending investors to buy the shares of Sadhna Broadcast and Sharpline Broadcast. Apart from the couple, some of the promoters of Sadhna Broadcast have been restrained from the securities market for their involvement.
“Prima facie, across the MMD (Misleading Message Disseminator), NSs (Net Sellers/ Promoters and profit makers), VCs (Volume Creators), and ICs (Information Carriers), the Noticees collectively helped create trading volumes and interest in the scrip, spread false and misleading YouTube videos, and hence induced unsuspecting investors to buy the Sadhna scrip at elevated prices, thereby prima facie violating the provisions of the SEBI Act and PFUTP Regulations,” said Sebi. “Collectively, the NSs and some of the VCs have booked extraordinary profits as a result of this scheme,” it added.
In addition to market ban, the regulator has impounded illegal gains to the tune of Rs 54 crore made by the entities after misleading videos were uploaded on YouTube channels, according to two separate interim orders.
As per SEBI, Warsi has made a profit of Rs 29.43 lakh, wife Rs 37.56 lakh, YouTuber Manish Mishra Rs 14.46 lakh, promoter Gaurav Gupta made Rs 7.6 crore, Shreya Gupta Rs 2.18 crore, Pooja Agrawal Rs 1.47 crore and Varun Media Rs 1.11 crore, along with others.
The total alleged illegal profits made after the videos were uploaded was Rs 41.85 crore. “Please do not believe everything you read in the news. Maria and my knowledge about stocks is zero, took advice and invested in Sharda, and like many other, lost all our hard earned money,” tweeted Arshad Warsi on Thursday.