Mumbai, Feb 24: The special PMLA court on Tuesday rejected the bail plea of Viresh Joshi, former Fund Manager of Axis Mutual Fund, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) over allegations of money laundering to the tune of Rs 91 crore, allegedly earned through “front trading”.
Joshi was arrested by the ED, which alleged that while working as the Chief Dealer of Axis Mutual Fund, he shared sensitive information regarding the mutual fund’s schemes and policies, causing severe financial losses to numerous investors.
ED alleges synthetic laundering scheme
It is further alleged that Joshi received Rs 91 crore from various unknown entities or individuals in different bank accounts of his family members. After detailed analysis of the bank accounts, the ED claimed that certain individuals were involved in a synthetic scheme to launder the illicit proceeds collected through multiple channels.
According to the agency, the funds were routed through various accounts in an attempt to conceal their origin and nature.
Joshi denies ‘front trading’ allegations
Joshi, on the other hand, claimed that his role as Chief Dealer was purely operational and limited to executing trades as per instructions from the fund management team, with no scope to exercise independent discretion.
“The entire trading process was conducted through Bloomberg’s Execution Management System (EMSX), a platform which maintains comprehensive audit trails and is under SEBI’s surveillance. The applicant did not have discretionary powers to place trades on his own; he merely executed trades on instructions received from authorised personnel,” Joshi submitted while denying the allegation of involvement in front trading.
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He further contended that the alleged amount said to have been earned through front running had already been recovered by the authorities.
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