India's 'Big Bull' Mehta dies in Mumbai
By CNN's Shishir Joshi
MUMBAI, India (CNN) -- Harshad Mehta, architect of a $1 billion scam in 1992 that was India's biggest securities scandal, died in Mumbai Monday, aged 49.
Mehta, who was in custody when he suffered chest pains Sunday night, was taken to Thane civil hospital in Mumbai and died at 12.40 am.
He leaves a legacy of mounting criminal cases, legal battles, debts and sour dreams.
Known as India's first 'Big Bull' of the stock market, Mehta was responsible for igniting the greed and imagination of millions of middle class Indians in the early 1990s.
He promised the ultimate rags to riches story. He rose from a small-town boy to the biggest broker on Mumbai's Dalal Street, the heart of India's financial district.
He enjoyed all the trappings of wealth, including a fabulous penthouse, a fleet of cars and multiple stock exchange memberships. 'Asset creation is not a crime'
"I thought I can sell dreams ... that asset creation is not a crime, that if you wanted to be Harshad Mehta, come to the stock market," he once said, not long before investigators pricked his speculative balloon.
Those investigations led to India's biggest stock exchange, the Bombay Stock Exchange, shutting shop for three days in 1992.
"I have not broken the law. I did whatever I did within the existing legal framework, which has many loopholes," he said a few years ago.
In 1992, Mehta had used those loopholes in India's banking system to deal in securities, with the monies being deposited to his account.
Several international and national financial and banking institutions fell prey to Mehta.
A joint probe by the government and the market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), suggested the total value of the scam could have been as much as 50 billion rupees ($1 billion). Arrested last month
Most recently, Mehta was arrested by India's federal police unit, the Central Bureau of Investigation on November 9 with his brothers, Ashwin and Sudhir.
The trio were alleged to have misappropriated $50 million from 2.7 million 'missing' shares in about 90 blue chip companies.
On December 21, a special court rejected Mehta's bail plea, remanding him in judicial custody till January 4. The allegations against him ranged from conspiracy, to forgery of a valuable security, cheating and forging documents, besides criminal breach of trust.
Despite his arrests, Mehta never gave up his interest in making money.
Investigations by SEBI revealed that Harshad had set up an entire network of investment companies, known as the Damayanti Group, to front his market operations.
That investigation led to SEBI imposing a lifetime ban against him.