TWO suspects have been arrested and another put on bail for allegedly rigging the stock market, Shanghai police said yesterday.

This is the first such case Shanghai police have ever investigated.

The suspects allegedly worked together to manipulate stock prices by placing large orders on certain stocks at well above their value.

These large orders would drive prices higher, allowing the suspects to profit from the rising value of shares they already owned, police say.

But before the high-price orders were fulfilled, the suspects would abort them, causing losses to other traders.

Police said such actions qualify as a crime when aborted transactions account for at least 50 percent of a stock’s entrusted transactions in a single day, as was the case with these suspects.

Local securities regulators reported the matter to Shanghai police last year as the stocks that were rigged are listed on Shanghai’s stock exchange.