Jignesh Shah arrested in NSEL scam

The Financial Technologies and Multi-Multi Commodities Exchange (MCX) promoter Jignesh Shah was arrested on Wednesday by the economic offences wing (EoW) of Mumbai Police for his alleged involvement in the Rs 5,600-crore (Rs 56 billion) National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) scam.

"We have arrested Jignesh Shah for his involvement in the NSEL scam," EoW sources told PTI in Mumbai.

Shah came under scanner last year, when his group company NSEL faced a payment crisis and nearly 18,000 investors allegedly lost millions in late July.

Shah had been the chairman and managing director of Financial Technologies since January 2001 and now serves as group chief executive. He served as the chief business strategist at Financial Technologies.

With Shah's arrest, the total number of arrests in the scam has gone up to seven.

The first arrest was the spot exchange CEO Anjani Sinha last October. Sinha is currently in jail.

Since the NSEL crisis came to fore, the FTIL group, Shah and his close aide Joseph Massey came under increased regulatory scrutiny and was ordered by both the Sebi and FMC as not fit and proper to run any exchanges in the country.

Shah was a group chief executive of MCX Stock Exchange, promoted by the group. Significantly, his 26 per cent holding has to be brought down to nil over the next three years and to 2 per cent over the next 90 days, according to the regulators.

Besides being the founder chairman and group chief executive of Financial Technologies Group, Shah is also the founder of MCX, the world's eighth largest commodity futures exchange, in over 12 years.

Shah is a first-generation entrepreneur and the founder/promoter of the FTIL Group, founded in 1999.

He was actively involved with the automation of the trading systems at Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and was also responsible for designing and implementing various modules of the back-office systems of BSE, particularly for market operations and surveillance.