Passport photos and the making of a scam

A unique modus operandi was used in the IPO scam with an accused putting out with an advertisement in local dailies inviting people to have their photographs taken and get two free prints.

The advertisement put out by Roopalben Nareshbhai Panchal, one of the main accused in the IPO scam, saw a large number of people wanting to get free prints of their pictures.

According to the CBI, the accused used to take photographs and keep one copy for opening fictitious bank and demat accounts.

There were 6,315 fictitious demat accounts opened for buying Yes Bank shares of which 6,221 had the same address of "402-403 Shashwat Building, opposite Gujarat College, Ahmedabad."

In the IDFC bank issue , there were 27,064 fake bank accounts of which 4,990 had the address of "406, Shashwat Building", 4,971 had a common address of "403, Shashwat Building" and 4,946 had an address of "307, Shashwat Building".

The modus operandi of Panchal was to use these photographs and fictitious names to open bank and demat accounts. Applications were then filed for allotment of shares to the account holders.

Once the allotment was made, the shares were transferred to Panchal's account, who then passed them on to financiers.

These financiers offloaded the shares on the opening day of listing in the stock markets and made illegal gains as the listing price was higher than the allotment price.