A Victorian man has been sentenced in the County Court of Victoria yesterday to a total of 15 months imprisonment for trading $7.14 million of ASX-listed securities between his own brokerage accounts, despite repeated warnings.

Mr Behzad Eghrari, of Vermont South, is to be released forthwith upon entering a recognisance to be of good behaviour for a period of 2 years.

On 13 November 2025, Mr Eghrari pleaded guilty to three market manipulation charges involving Investigator Resources Limited (ASX: IVR), Silver Mines Ltd (ASX: SVL), and Lumos Diagnostics Holdings Ltd (ASX: LDX).

In a statement of agreed facts filed with the Court, Mr Eghrari admitted to executing 679 trades between four share trading accounts he controlled between 3 August 2022 and 23 January 2024.

His trades accounted for up to 73% of the total daily trading volume in the relevant shares, creating a false or misleading appearance of active trading in the market.

Mr Eghrari was warned on multiple occasions by one of his brokers, Bell Direct, about his trading activity – through phone calls and order cancellations – but continued to execute such trades.

This activity, known as ‘wash trading’, is a form of market manipulation and occurs when an individual or entity executes buy and sell orders for the same financial product without any change in beneficial ownership.

The volume of the wash trades ranged from 1 to 700,000 per transaction, with values from $0.05 to $29,587.

Mr Eghrari used three Commonwealth Securities Limited (CommSec) brokerage accounts and one Bell Direct account, all in his control, to execute the wash trades.

The matter was prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) (CDPP) after an ASIC investigation.