New Delhi : At least five stock brokers have come under regulatory scanner for siphoning off securities and funds worth over Rs 500 crore from investor accounts for personal gains to foreign locations, including Switzerland and Singapore, as also for private ventures like running a spa.
Interestingly, all the five brokers are based in the national capital region and at least two of them have already faced market regulator Sebi’s ire for various discrepancies.
In a similar modus operandi, these brokers diverted the money from the accounts of their clients for personal gains, while one of them is believed to have been running an internet-based scam for luring investors with promise of huge returns in less time, a senior official told PTI.
Sebi suspects that the top executives of these brokerage firms could have been hand-in-glove with the promoters in siphoning off the investors’ money, as many of them have become untraceable and the show-cause notices served to them have returned undelivered.
The regulator and exchanges have stepped up their efforts in recent past to check instances of brokers diverting funds and securities from investor accounts. In one such case, Sebi late last month barred a broker, Kassa Finvest, and its top executives from capital markets, while asking them to provide details of their assets and funds.
