How Ketan Parekh Scammed India for ₹40,000 Crore

Scam 1992 made Harshad Mehta a household name. The show ended with his death in 2001, in custody. What it did not show is what happened next. His protégé was still out there. Ketan Parekh did not make the front page the way Harshad Mehta did. He preferred it that way. A chartered accountant from a Gujarati stockbroking family, he had watched and learned from the master — and by the time the dotcom boom arrived in the late 1990s, he was ready to run his own operation. Bigger, more sophisticated, and ultimately more destructive to the small investors who got caught in it. What you'll find out in this episode: → The Harshad Mehta connection. Ketan Parekh came up in the same Dalal Street world that produced Harshad Mehta. He was not a co-conspirator in the 1992 scam — he was a student of the same system. He learned the mechanics of bull operations: how to build positions before anyone notices, how to manufacture momentum by getting the right people talking about the right stocks, how to use the banking system's settlement mechanisms as a source of liquidity. By the time Harshad Mehta's case was winding through the courts, Ketan Parekh was already building his own book. He had watched what worked and what went wrong. He had plans to improve on both. → The K-10 and the dotcom boom. In the late 1990s, Ketan Parekh assembled a basket of stocks that the market came to know as the "K-10" — companies in technology, telecom, and media, including Global Tele-Systems, HFCL, Himachal Futuristic, Aftek, DSQ Software, and Zee. He ramped them to extraordinary valuations using circular trades, leveraged positions, and the general euphoria of the global dotcom bull run. For a period, he was celebrated as a market genius. The stocks moved because he said they would move. → The funding machine: Madhavpura Bank and the pay-orders. What made the K-10 ramp possible was not just skill but borrowed money — specifically, the co-operative bank system. The Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank in Ahmedabad provided pay-orders that Ketan Parekh used as collateral for trades. Global Trust Bank was another funding vehicle. The circular structure of the funding — borrowed money used to pump stocks whose rising value justified more borrowing — was the same basic mechanic Harshad Mehta had used in 1992, updated for the 1990s. → The 2001 crash. In early 2001, three things happened at once: the global dotcom bubble burst, a bear cartel went aggressively short on the K-10 stocks, and the Union Budget disappointed a market that had positioned itself for good news. The K-10 collapsed. Not gradually. Violently. Stocks that had tripled and quadrupled in the rally gave back everything, and more. Madhavpura Bank, which had lent against the stocks at inflated valuations, faced a ₹1,000+ crore hole and eventually failed. Small investors across India who had followed the K-10 rally into the market were wiped out — people who had borrowed against homes, used savings, trusted the bull. A Joint Parliamentary Committee was formed to investigate. Ketan Parekh was arrested. The party was over. → The 14-year ban that did not stick. SEBI banned Ketan Parekh from Indian securities markets. He was convicted. By conventional logic, the story ended there. It did not. In January 2025, SEBI issued a fresh order barring Ketan Parekh — along with two associates, including a Singapore-based partner — for operating as an illegal front for a foreign portfolio investor, passing tips on trades that generated approximately ₹65.77 crore in illegal gains. His contacts in the scheme had his number saved in WhatsApp as "Jack" and "Boss." The Bombay Bull had never left. India's Richest is your front row seat to the Game of Thrones of India's wealthiest families. New episodes every week. India's Richest is your front row seat to the Game of Thrones of India's wealthiest families. New episodes every day. 🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications — new episodes every day. #stockmarket #businessdocumentary #billionairemindset #indianeconomy #indiadocumentary #indiarising #businessempire #entrepreneurship #LuxuryLifestyle #BillionaireLifestyle #Wealth #BusinessHistory