Mumbai, April 10: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has uncovered a large-scale Ponzi-like scheme involving alleged misuse of a stock broking licence by Trdez Investment Private Limited, with total fund mobilisation estimated at over ₹2,950 crore.
According to SEBI’s order, investors were lured with promises of assured monthly returns of 10–12 per cent and misled into believing that multiple entities — including Infinite Beacon, IB Prop Desk and Sispay TFS — were affiliated with the SEBI-registered broker. This perceived association was used by agents to build credibility and channel investor funds into bank accounts controlled by these entities.
The regulator found that investors were provided with dashboards displaying fictitious profits, while initial withdrawals were allowed to establish trust. However, subsequent restrictions on withdrawals triggered concerns over the legitimacy of the operations.
Investigations revealed extensive linkages between the brokerage and associated entities, including overlapping directorships, shared addresses, common contact details, and financial transactions between personal accounts of directors and related firms such as Trdez Financial Services and Infinite Beacon. These findings indicated a coordinated structure facilitating fund mobilisation.
SEBI also flagged the presence of cryptocurrency-linked transactions, including dealings in USDT, based on investor complaints and statements recorded during the probe. In some cases, funds were allegedly routed into crypto instruments, further complicating traceability.
Notably, the broker itself was largely inactive in its core business, executing minimal proprietary trades and no client trades since inception, raising further concerns about the legitimacy of its operations.
While the exact gains accrued by the broker remain unquantified, SEBI concluded that its conduct enabled a misleading investment structure that facilitated large-scale fund mobilisation under false assurances, reinforcing regulatory concerns around misuse of market intermediaries.
