The 1992 Indian stock market scam, orchestrated by stockbroker Harshad Mehta alongside corrupt bankers and politicians on the Bombay Stock Exchange, was the largest money market fraud in India's history, amounting to roughly ₹5,000 crores (over $15 million). Mehta exploited banking loopholes by using forged cheques and fake bank receipts (BRs) to divert over ₹1,000 crore from the banking system into the equity market, artificially inflating stock prices—such as ACC, which jumped from ₹200 to ₹9,000 per share—by up to 40 times their original value. When the fraud was uncovered in April 1992, the stock market crashed dramatically, with the index falling from 4,500 to 2,500, wiping out ₹1,000 billion in market capitalization and leaving banks holding millions in useless debt. The scam devastated lakhs of families and exposed deep corruption among top bank officials, as confirmed by finance secretary Montek Singh Ahluwalia, triggering a complete overhaul of the financial system. As a result, India introduced stricter regulations and online security systems for stock transactions to prevent such a massive diversion of bank funds in the future.