How Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath Pranked His Employees With Fake Police Raid In Bengaluru

Nithin Kamath, the CEO of Zerodha, shared a prank video in which he had organised a fake police raid at his company’s office in Bengaluru. This video was made a decade ago on January 27, 2014. In the clip, a group of fake police officials and reporters barged into the Zerodha support office in Bengaluru claiming that an order by the Bombay High Court asked them to stop the company’s operations and produce all employees before the court, concerning serious accusations of a ponzi scheme and financial fraud. This prank took place when Nithin Kamath was out of office. The video started with the explanation, “We carried out a fake police raid in our office to see how the team reacts to extreme stress and to have some fun, of course.”

As employees tried to make sense of what was happening, Hanan, the head of client operations, took a confident approach with the police demanding more clarity about the situation. Venu, the head of operations, tried to deal with the police with a softer tone. Finally, all employees were rounded up in a room, and Nithin Kamath came to the office and announced that it was all a prank, much to everyone’s relief.

Nithin Kamath shared this clip on X on Sunday. Commenting on it, an X user wrote, “Joyful working at a workplace creates the best of teams. Without leaps of imagination we lose the excitement of possibilities.”

Another person observed, “Hanan Delvi this guy is ready to lose everything for zerodha. No doubt he is still with zerodha and continues to. Epic prank.”

An X user recalled watching this video a year ago and wrote, “Years back when I started to use mobile phones. I used to watch a lot of videos and this was the first prank video. I think I remember that moment when I saw the whole video I used to laugh a lot.” Another person wrote, “Remember watching this several years ago. Time flies and like what!!!”

However, not all people were impressed with the prank. A few people argued that stopping a stock broking firm’s operations can cause loss to the customers. Expressing this sentiment, an X user wrote, “Can’t watch beyond the 1st couple of minutes. Cringeworthy. Perhaps focus on making your Zerodha app reliable instead of burning all our fees money on playing dramas like this. Disgrace.”