Held on 11th & 13th February, 2023 at LLIM, Mumbai
LLIM organized a two-day National Seminar on the topic “Financial Frauds and Anti-Money Laundering Laws” in LLIM Auditorium from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on both days. Approximately 300 participants including students and faculty members attended the event.
Day 1 started with welcoming the guests by Dean- Academics Dr. V.B Angadi and Director-LLIM Dr. C. Satyanarayana & HoD Finance- Prof. Vikas Sharma. Dr. Kamalji Gupta- Chairman of, Governing Council, conveyed his wishes for the success of the Seminar.
Mr. Anantnag Katkar, AGM- Offline Surveillance, BSE; was the chief guest. In his address, he explained in detail various surveillance procedures and the modus operandi of the stock exchange in a lucid manner. He also explained with examples that how investors get conned by fraudsters in connection with the stock markets. He highlighted many ways through which investors could be affected by the fraudsters in stock markets, such as circular Trading, Insider Trading, Pumping and dumping, Reversal trading, spoofing etc. He also discussed the investigative process that the stock exchange undertakes in these situations. He also explained the preventive measures and controls used by the stock exchange. Mr. Katkar also discussed the surveillance mechanism and its impact.
The second speaker, Ms. Ushma Zunzavadiya discussed the types of financial fraud and concepts and mechanisms of financial fraud such as tax havens, shell companies, Ponzi schemes, cryptocurrency frauds, and tax and accounting frauds. She also explained how tax evasions are done using tax havens or shell companies. She also discussed how a phenomenon known as round tripping is used by corporates to inflate stock prices and launder money through offshore investment funds.
The next speaker Mr. Pramod Shetty, discussed Indian as well as global case studies including the Securities scam of 1992, Saradha Case, ABG Shipyard case, FTX case, Enron and WorldCom. He explained various precautions to be taken by the customers to prevent themselves from frauds. He discussed ways to avoid Corporate and personal financial frauds. He emphasized on not sharing any key financial information to unknown people or on phone.
The post lunch session begun with Ms. Miti Chakraborty from SBI. She highlighted the massive amount involved in online banking frauds (Rs. 1.85 lakh crores in 2020). She explained various banking frauds taking place and alerted the audience not to fall prey to any fishing or card cloning or sim swapping incidences. She also alerted about screen sharing apps, unverified apps, search engines and QR code being used in frauds. She also explained a newer way of frauds occurring using emulative Voice AI.
The next speaker CA Shripad Vaidya explained the modus operandi of various well known financial frauds in the form of case studies in a very jovial manner. He explained the cases from Satyam Computers to the PNB scam by Nirav Modi.
The last speaker Mr. Jaidev Joshi explained the nitty gritty of money laundering and its repercussions for the economy. He also discussed demonetization and its impact on terror funding. He also discussed the Anti-money laundering laws and provisions for punishment under the same.
key takeaways from all these sessions were:
• Financial frauds are rampant with manifold increase in past few years.
• The use of technology has made frauds easier to commit as well as to identify and prevent.
• A little common sense and alertness combined with knowledge can easily prevent all of us from financial frauds
