Ketan Parekh is a former stock broker from Mumbai, India, who was convicted in 2008, for

involvement in the Indian stock market manipulation scam that occurred from late 1998 to
2001. During this period, Parekh artificially rigged prices of certain chosen securities
(informally referred to as K-10 stocks), using large sums of money borrowed from banks
including the Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank, of which he himself was a
director. As a result, he was barred from trading in the Indian stock exchanges till 2017.

Parekh purchased large stakes in less known small market capitalization companies, and
jacked up their prices through circular trading with other traders, and collusion with these
companies and large institutional investors. This resulted in steep hikes in share prices (for
example: shares of Zee telefilms zoomed up from Rs. 127 to a price of Rs. 10,000. This set of
ten stocks was colloquially referred to as "K-10" stocks and Parekh was playfully referred to
as "Pentafour"

It later transpired that promoters and industrialists often gave Parekh funds to artificially rig
up their share prices. Thus in just a few months, scrips of virtually unknown companies like
Visualsoft rose from Rs 625 to Rs 8,448 per share and Sonata Software rose from Rs 90 to Rs
2,936.60. However, the bear cartel in Bombay stock exchange started to hammer his K-10
stocks in February 2001, leading them to fall and precipitating a payment crisis in Kolkata.

A 30 member Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) investigation ensued which found that
Parekh had been involved in circular trading throughout the time period from and with a
variety of companies, including Global Trust Bank (GTB) and Madhavpura Mercantile
Cooperative Bank (MMCB). The JPC found him to have played a major role in rigging the
prices of a set of ten Indian companies, from 1995 up to 2001.
This resulted in Parekh's first conviction, which carried a one-year sentence, coming as a
result of a transaction he conducted involving a unit of Canara Bank in 1992.
Though Parekh was subsequently barred from stock trading, the Securities and Exchange
Board of India alleged in 2009 that a variety of companies and other actors were trading on
behalf of Parekh. An investigation ensued and 26 entities were banned from trading as a
result of that investigation. In March 2014 he was convicted by a special CBI court
in Mumbai for cheating and sentenced to two years rigorous imprisonment.