FIR against NSEL bosses, defaulters; nationwide raids launched

Dubbing it as "one of the biggest scams in India", the Mumbai Police today registered an FIR against National Spot Exchange Ltd promoter Jignesh Shah and others in connection with Rs 5,600-crore payment crisis at the crippled exchange and began raiding their offices, residences and warehouses across the country.
NSEL, promoted by Shah-led Financial Technologies (FT), has been facing problems in settling Rs 5,600 crore dues of 148 members/brokers, representing 13,000 investor-clients, after it suspended trade on July 31 on the direction of the government.
Other promoters, directors and defaulting brokers of the spot exchange have also been named in the FIR, which comes nearly two months after NSEL suspended trading. The accused have been charged with several criminal offences.

"An FIR was registered by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) this morning against the NSEL promoters, directors and defaulters on charges of cheating, forgery and breach of trust among others," Joint Police Commissioner Himanshu Roy said.
As many as 63 police squads, comprising 121 officers and 241 policemen, have fanned out across 16 states to conduct searches at 184 locations that include residences, offices and warehouses of the accused, police said.
The NSEL office, residences of Shah, Chairman and Managing Director of Financial Technologies, and Joseph Massey, Managing Director and CEO of MCX Stock Exchange (also promoted by FT), in Mumbai were raided today.

The states where raids are being carried out include Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, police said.

"The accused had hatched a conspiracy and cheated 13,000 investors to the tune of crores of rupees by using the NSEL platform," Roy said.
"The raiding teams have been briefed to confiscate all hard disks, CDs, other electronic evidences, account books among others, besides sealing the warehouses. It is one of the biggest scams in the country in the recent past," another officer added.
Besides Shah and Joseph, the FIR, filed on the basis of a complaint of an investor Pankaj Saraf include officials namely Anjani Sinha, Shantilal Guru, B D Pawar, Amit Mukherjee, M C Pandey, Shrikant Jawalgekar, Neerav Panday, company's auditor Mukesh Shah and others.