Former Bombay Stock Exchange director Ravi Narain has been arrested by the ED on multiple charges, including money laundering. His role is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation as part of two criminal cases linked to the board - the alleged co-location 'scam' case. and illegal phone tapping of employees. Served as Managing Director of Stock Exchange from 1994 to 2013.
Later appointed as Vice Chairman. Retired in 2017. ED had earlier arrested another officer Chitra Ramakrishna on similar charges. Former Mumbai Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey was arrested in July in the phone tapping case. The probe agency had earlier told the court that "snooping of phone calls" at the NSE was being done since 1997 allegedly through a company helmed by Pandey and his family members.
The CBI FIR registered on May 19 against Pandey's company, iSec Services, red flags several violations of the SEBI circular by the firm in conducting system audit of
stock brokers involved in algorithmic trading using the co-location facility.
It has alleged that iSec services had conducted audits of two "high-risk brokers" -- SMC Global Securities Ltd and Shaastra Securities Trading Private Limited -- fraudulently when the co-location "scam" was going on.
The SEBI had categorized brokers into low, medium and high-risk, based on their trading mode and through various circulars issued from time to time prescribed different norms of conducting system audits according to their risk profiles.
