How false YouTube tips sent Sadhna Broadcast's shares up 19x and then it crashed again

Companies No. 52 9 October 2026 · 2 min read

SEBI is still collecting money in the Sadhna Broadcast case. On 7 October 2026, it told every bank and mutual fund in India to pay it from the accounts of Sadhna Bio Oils, Virtual Business Solution, Shreya Gupta, Saurabh Gupta and Sulabh Dikshit.

SEBI says all of them helped rig the share price in 2022. It describes the plan in 3 steps: push the price up, promote the stock, then sell.

People linked to each other traded the stock among themselves. On 4 March 2022, a share cost ₹17.70. In June, each share was split into 10, so that is ₹1.77 in today's shares. By 14 July, a share cost ₹12.68, up 616%.

From 15 July, promotional YouTube videos said the company had a 5G licence, was being bought by the Adani Group, and had a ₹1,100 crore film deal with an American company. SEBI found the videos false and misleading. The stock could only move 5% a day, and it rose 5% on each of the next 20 trading days. On 12 August it closed at ₹33.15, 19 times its March price.

In those 20 days, 45,466 accounts bought the stock, and 3 of the 5 defaulters were among the biggest sellers.

When the videos stopped, the stock fell 5% a day for 10 trading days, to ₹20 on 29 August. Later videos lifted it twice more, and both times it fell back. SEBI's May 2025 order put it at about ₹2.60.

Over 2022, the promoters cut their stake from 40.95% to 25.58%. Ordinary shareholders went from 885 to 72,509. The people who bought on the videos ended up holding the shares the promoters sold!

The company has since renamed itself Crystal Business System. SEBI says the new name looks like an attempt to cover their tracks.

Line chart of Sadhna Broadcast's daily closing price on BSE since January 2019, adjusted for the 10:1 split: about ₹1 to ₹2.55 until 2022, a spike to ₹33.15 on 12 August 2022 during SEBI's investigation period, then back to about ₹2.

Sources