Stocks broke: Man ‘duped’ of crores

Two stock market traders, who were arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch for allegedly cheating a departmental stores owner to the tune of Rs4 crore, by issuing bogus purchase bills of non-existent share transactions, have been released on bail.

The duo — Haresh Parmanand Jashnani, 47 and his younger brother, Tulsi 45 — had also been earlier booked for allegedly duping a share investment company, Satco, of Rs2.32 crore. The duo were released on bail in the earlier case on September 29 and secured bail in the second case on September 30.

In his complaint to the EOW, Praful Vora, owner of the departmental store, Amarsons, said his finance broker, Jethanand Rohra, had introduced him to Tulsi in November 2005. Tulsi reportedly claimed he was a share broker who operated under the name of “Jashnani Leasing & Finance Ltd”, and worked from his office in Kalbadevi Road for the past 10 years.

During Diwali 2005, Tusli and his cousin Jairam Jashnani repeatedly approached Vora at his store near Breach Candy hospital and convinced him to invest in the shares, the complaint said. Vora further claimed that in the first week of December 2005, Tulsi told him to purchase at least 3,000 shares of a particular company, which would be “profitable”. Following this, Vora reportedly paid Rs25.24lakh to Jashnani Leasing & Finance Ltd. But the Jashnani brothers did not transfer the company shares to his demat account, he alleged.

According to Vora, the cumulative interest on the shares was now almost Rs4 crore.