Stock-rigging circuit: Sebi bans actor Warsi, wife

Sebi on Thursday barred 31 entities, including actor Arshad Warsi, his wife Maria Goretti and promoters of Sadhna Broadcast from the market. The move is related to misleading videos on YouTube channels - 'The Advisor' and 'Moneywise' - luring investors to buy the TV channel's shares.

Sadhna's promoters who have been restrained from the market are Shreya Gupta, Gaurav Gupta, Saurabh Gupta, Pooja Aggarwal and Varun Media. The regulator has impounded illegal gains of Rs 41.9 crore made after the videos were uploaded. Sebi noted that Warsi (who played 'Circuit' in the film 'Munnabhai MBBS') made gains of Rs 29.4 lakh, while his wife profited by Rs 37.6 lakh.

The order came after Sebi received complaints that alleged there was price manipulation and offloading of shares (also known as pump-and-dump) by certain entities in the Sadhna scrip.

The regulator then found a spurt in the price and volume of Sadhna scrip between April and mid-July 2022.

Subsequent to the release of the videos, there was an increase in the price and trading volume of the Sadhna scrip. In this period, certain promoter shareholders, key management personnel of Sadhna, and non-promoter shareholders offloaded a significant part of their holdings at inflated prices and booked profits.

One of the misleading videos on these YouTube channels was that Sadhna Broadcast is going to be taken over by Adani Group.

Another video claimed a large US corporation has entered into a contract to produce four devotional movies.

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