Victorian man charged over alleged market manipulation (ASIC, 2025)

Judgment entered

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In March 2025 ASIC announced that Behzad Eghrari of Vermont South, Victoria, was charged with three offences over wash trades in Investigator Resources, Silver Mines and Lumos Diagnostics shares. He pleaded guilty and, in December 2025, the County Court of Victoria sentenced him to 15 months' imprisonment, released immediately on a two-year good behaviour recognisance.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission announced this matter on March 14, 2025 as release 25-039MR. The respondents named are Behzad Eghrari (1 individual, 0 entities).

The release says the charges concern buy and sell orders in the same financial product with no change in beneficial ownership, in three ASX-listed companies. The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions is prosecuting; the maximum penalty for the offences is 15 years' imprisonment.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation and wash trading, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome. ASIC release 25-302MR (dated December 12, 2025) says Eghrari was sentenced in the County Court of Victoria the day before, so we record December 11, 2025. He received a total of 15 months' imprisonment for trading about $7.14 million of ASX securities between his own brokerage accounts, and was released at once on entering a recognisance to be of good behaviour for two years. The release says he made 679 trades across four accounts between August 3, 2022 and January 23, 2024, at times making up as much as 73 percent of daily volume, and that he had pleaded guilty. This is a criminal sentence; the release does not state a fine in this case.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with 2 techniques in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Price manipulation — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
• Wash trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2025-03-14 ASIC media release
2. 2025-12-11 Eghrari sentenced in the County Court of Victoria (ASIC release 25-302MR)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• ASIC media release
• ASIC release 25-302MR (sentencing)

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.