India's markets regulator on Friday passed its final order in a case of front-running of Axis Mutual Fund trades by its former chief dealer. The regulator said the scheme was a deliberate and coordinated operation that exploited non-public information about the fund house's impending trades.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) imposed monetary penalties against Viresh Joshi, former chief dealer and twenty others of Rs 74 million ($766,343.04). Joshi was handed the highest penalty of Rs 30 million for leaking confidential information about Axis Mutual Fund's trades and profiting from it.
While imposing a ban of seven years from securities markets, the regulator said Joshi worked with Dubai-based trader Prijesh Kurani and others to run a coordinated front-running scheme between September 2021 and March 2022.
Joshi used a network of mule accounts, broker terminals, WhatsApp communications, cash/angadia transfers to front run Axis Mutual Fund's big trades and made gains of Rs 305.6 million rupees.
