When Nithin Kamath sent fake cops to raid Zerodha, prank employees: ‘Your founder is a cheat’

Nithin Kamath pranked Zerodha employees in 2014 with a fake office raid

Zerodha founder Nithin Kamath once sent fake policemen to raid his company’s office in a prank that managed to deceive many employees – some of whom ended up in tears. Kamath, 44, spoke about the incident last month on the ‘OnePlus Open Conversations’ podcast, hosted by Varun Mayya.

“I ran a prank in the office. I got these Kannada actors to raid our office as cops. We captured this whole thing…I knew back then that this was the place to be,” he told Mayya.

“I had these random ideas. No one would have ever thought that a stock broker would run a prank video of cops raiding saying that ‘your founder is a cheat and has run away’...I mean the reaction in that video was just crazy… I mean half our office was crying that day,” Kamath recalled.

5 years back, when we were much smaller, a lot lesser issues to deal with and hence testosterone was still at play, had carefully executed this mega prank at our office. :) Happy fools day. https://t.co/ydcljeXOLV

— Nithin Kamath (@Nithin0dha) April 1, 2019

Nithin Kamath had also shared a video of the prank on social media in 2019. It shows the fake cops asking Zerodha employees “Where is Nithin.”

On being told the founder is attending a meeting, the ‘cops’ assert he is “absconding.” They go a step further and tell the Zerodha employees they will all be arrested for running a ponzi scheme.

By the end of the clip, half the employees are shocked beyond words and some are in tears. However, Nithin Kamath makes an appearance after everyone is herded into a small room.

The CEO of Zerodha walks in and yells “Surprise” as his employees realise they have been pranked. Footage of the prank has been viewed 1.8 million times on YouTube, where it was shared nine years ago.