Bollywood actor Arshad Warsi, his wife Maria Goretti, and 57 others have been barred by the stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), from accessing the Indian equity market for up to five years in a stock manipulation case.
The case pertains to Sadhna Broadcast Ltd (SBL), a little-known company whose shares were artificially inflated and offloaded onto unsuspecting retail investors through a coordinated stock manipulation scheme.
The case involving Sadhna Broadcast — renamed Crystal Business System on May 23, 2025 — is a textbook example of a “pump-and-dump” scam.
The promoters of the company executed trades among themselves in a highly coordinated manner, thereby driving the stock price higher. Sebi noted that while these trades were often small in volume, they had a disproportionate impact on price due to low liquidity, allowing the perpetrators to push the scrip upward with relatively minimal trading outlay.
In the second phase of the scheme, the manipulators turned to promoting the stock through YouTube channels, attracting retail investors to whom the shares could be sold at inflated prices.
This was carried out by releasing misleading promotional videos across several YouTube channels, including Moneywise, The Advisor, and Profit Yatra — all operated by Manish Mishra, who played a central role in the scheme.
These videos portrayed SBL as a promising investment opportunity and were timed to coincide with and amplify artificial market activity, SEBI stated.
The claims included the company signing a deal with the Adani Group, entering into a ₹1,100 crore contract with a major American corporation, and attracting mutual fund investments. Sebi said in its order that the content of these videos was false and misleading, uploaded solely to manipulate SBL’s share prices.
Between March 2022 and December 2022, the promoter shareholding declined by 15 per cent — from 40.95 per cent to 25.58 per cent. During the same period, the number of public shareholders surged from just 885 to 72,509. Consequently, public shareholding rose from 59.05 per cent in March 2022 to 74.52 per cent in March 2023.
On July 13, 2022, Bollywood actor Arshad Warsi purchased 1.87 lakh shares of Sadhna Broadcast from Jatin Shah, a known associate in the manipulation network. On the same day, his wife Maria Goretti Warsi acquired 2.65 lakh shares.
While Warsi later claimed he had acted on a friend’s investment tip and was unaware of any wrongdoing, SEBI rejected this defence, citing WhatsApp chats that showed his involvement in the “pump-and-dump” scheme.
SEBI noted that Arshad Warsi made a profit of ₹41.70 lakh, while his wife earned ₹50.35 lakh. Both have been barred from accessing the securities market.
SEBI has also directed 59 entities to disgorge total unlawful gains worth ₹58.01 crore, along with 12 per cent interest per annum, jointly and severally, from the end of the investigation period until the date of actual payment.
(By arrangement with livemint.com)
