A day after arresting Financial Technologies and Multi-Commodities Exchange (MCX) promoter Jignesh Shah in the NSEL scam case, city police have shifted focus to brokers and warned that they would face the same fate if they do not co-operate with the probe.
"If the brokers are not forthcoming during the probe, we would be left with no option but to take them into custody for interrogation," said a senior police officer who is privy to the probe into the Rs 5,600 crore NSEL scam.
Brokers' role is under investigation for certain malpractices. Brokers have charged certain percentage on fake warehouse receipts as per the investigators.
Police have also found that certain broking houses used client accounts without their knowledge for doing purchases. Many rules were modified for brokers' gain.
Although brokers have been under scanner for long, nobody has been arrested so far.
"However, if they (brokers) do not co-operate, we will arrest them," the officer added.
Forensic audit of some of the broking firms was not done, police said, adding, "It would take at least two to three months to complete the auditing of all the brokers involved in the case."
In many cases, brokers too had accompanied NSEL officials to convince high net-worth individuals to invest and trade on the controversial NSEL platform, police said.
