SEBI flags ₹15.15 lakh cr fake revenue in 5 years by Rajesh Exports

In what is unfolding as one of the largest corporate governance and accounting scandals in Indian market history, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has accused Bengaluru-based gold refiner and jeweler Rajesh Exports Ltd of massive financial misrepresentation.

In a scathing 109-page interim ex-parte order issued on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, SEBI whole-time member Kamlesh Chandra Varshney revealed that the company prima facie falsified approximately ₹15.15 lakh crore ($180 billion) in consolidated revenue between FY21 and FY25. This jaw-dropping sum accounts for an astonishing 99.8% of the total consolidated revenue the company reported over that five-year period.

As an immediate regulatory safeguard, SEBI has barred the company’s promoter and executive chairman, Rajesh Mehta, from buying, selling, or dealing in the securities of Rajesh Exports until further notice.

1. The Discrepancy: The Swiss Subsidiary Illusion

The core of SEBI’s investigation targets how Rajesh Exports accounted for its overseas operations, most notably its prized Swiss precious metals refiner, Valcambi SA.

On paper, Rajesh Exports claimed that 97% to 99% of its massive consolidated revenues originated from its overseas subsidiaries. However, when regulatory forensic auditors cross-examined the numbers, the house of cards collapsed:

The Discrepancy: Between FY21 and FY25, Rajesh Exports reported ₹15,18,413 crore in revenue stemming from its subsidiaries.
The Reality: The actual standalone audited financial statements of Valcambi SA—audited independently by KPMG in Switzerland—showed a true revenue baseline of just ₹3,027 crore over that exact timeframe.
The Ghost Revenue: This leaves an unverified, completely inflated gulf of ₹15,15,385 crore. SEBI noted that step-down subsidiaries were practically negligible (representing a mere 0.5% of group numbers), proving that nearly the entirety of the company’s global operational scale was an illusion engineered to mislead investors.

2. Disguising Personal Trading as Corporate Revenue

The interim order also uncovered highly questionable transactions where corporate funds were allegedly routed to support the promoter’s personal market activities:

Fictitious Gold Invoices: SEBI found that derivative trades executed by Rajesh Mehta through his personal trading account at Affluence Shares and Stocks were disguised in company ledgers as real corporate gold transactions. The company logged ₹11,487 crore in sales and ₹11,488 crore in purchases that the stockbroker explicitly denied ever happened at a corporate level.
Siphoned Margins: The company transferred ₹7.45 crore of corporate cash directly to Mehta’s personal account to act as margin money for his personal derivatives trading. He lost ₹3.5 crore of it, returning only the remainder. This major Related Party Transaction was completely hidden from the board and stock exchanges.
Misclassified Income: To further prop up operational figures, the company incorrectly booked ₹867 crore of foreign exchange fluctuations and ₹204 crore of fixed-deposit interest income as direct “revenue from operations.”

3. The African Gold Mine “Phantom Assets”

The discrepancies extended directly onto the balance sheet’s asset definitions. In FY23, Rajesh Exports disseminated public disclosures claiming it held non-current investments worth ₹1,035 crore in South African gold mines.

When pushed by SEBI to prove these assets existed, the company failed to provide a single entity-wise breakup, financial statement, reconciliation sheet, or formal valuation report to validate that they owned even a single gram of a mining footprint in Africa.

4. Stonewalling, Ghost Invoices, and the “Swiss Shield”

SEBI’s probe was initially triggered in March 2024 following a shareholder complaint regarding large trade receivables that had sat uncollected on the books for over two years. When SEBI and forensic auditors from BDO India attempted to investigate, the company actively stonewalled the probe.

Management completely refused to grant the regulator access to its internal ERP systems, withheld journal entries, and uniquely tried to hide behind Swiss Data Privacy laws to block disclosures regarding Valcambi SA. SEBI flatly rejected the excuse, noting that Swiss data protection laws protect individual privacy, not corporate financial records.

Furthermore, when auditors tried to verify the long-standing buyers tied to the old receivables, they discovered a web of fabrications: one buyer’s email bounced permanently, another’s trade license belonged to an entirely unrelated entity, and some attached invoices dated back to FY 2012-13.

                 [ RAJESH EXPORTS LAWSUIT MATRIX ]
                                 │
       ┌─────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┐
       ▼                                                   ▼
 [ SEBI Mandates ]                                   [ Next Legal Steps ]
 • Restrained Rajesh Mehta from trading.        • Referred to NFRA for auditing 
 • 30 days to furnish all records.         malpractice probe (BSD & Co).
 • Fresh forensic audit initiated.       • 21 days for promoters to respond.

5. Market Wealth Obliteration

The publication of the interim order has hammered retail and institutional wealth. Public shareholders are estimated to have lost approximately ₹12,725 crore in cumulative wealth as the stock steadily unwound over the multi-year investigation window.

While the stock closed slightly higher at ₹109.99 on Wednesday just before the order went fully public, it has collapsed over 34% in 2026 alone and sits a staggering 90% away from its all-time high of ₹1,029 achieved in 2023. SEBI has given the company 30 days to hand over all withheld transaction logs to a newly appointed forensic team, warning that the ex-parte order was fast-tracked specifically to prevent the promoters from destroying corporate records or shifting assets out of regulatory reach.

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