A unique modus operandi was used in the IPO scam in IDFC and Yes Bank in which an accused came out with an advertisement in local dailies asking public to click a photograph and also get two copies free of cost.

The advertisement put out by Roopalben Nareshbhai Panchal, one of the main accused in the IPO scam in IDFC and Yes Bank, saw a large number of people gathering to avail this free service, but least did they know what the photographs would be used for.

According to the CBI, the accused used to click photographs and keep one copy for opening fictitious bank and dematerialised accounts. There were 6,315 fictitious demat accounts opened for procurement of Yes Bank shares out of which 6,221 had the name address of “402-403 Shashwat Building, Opposite Gujarat College, Ahmedabad”. In the IDFC bank, there were 27,064 fake bank accounts out of which 4,990 had the address of “406 Shashwat Building”, 4,971 had common address of “403-Shashwat Building” and 4,946 had an address of “307-Shashwat Building”.

The modus operandi of Panchal was to obtain photographs of large number of people and once they were available, fictitious names along with these snaps were used to open fictitious bank and demat accounts. Then an application was made for allotment of these shares to the account holders.

Once the allotment was made, the shares were transferred to Panchal’s account, who in turn passed them to financers. These financers offloaded the shares on the opening day of the listing of shares in the stock market and made illegal gains as list price was higher then allotment price.

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