U.S. prosecutors have charged Gautam Adani, India’s second-richest man, with fraud after he and several co-conspirators tried to pay $250 million in bribes to Indian officials.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, New York, said Wednesday that executives, most of them Indian, raised money from U.S. investors and other international financial institutions “based on false and misleading statements,” and authorities say they paid bribes. accused. Indian officials seeking multibillion-dollar solar contracts.
“The defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars,” U.S. Attorney Brion Peace said in a statement accompanying the indictment. The defendants then “lied about the bribery scheme in an attempt to raise funds from U.S. and international investors,” Peace said.
Prosecutors say the scheme took place between 2020 and this year.
Adani’s nephew Sagar Adani is also named as a defendant. The Securities and Exchange Commission separately announced civil fraud charges Wednesday.
Gautam Adani, 62, is worth about $70 billion, according to Forbes magazine, and heads the Adani Group, a conglomerate with stakes in the logistics and energy sectors. The indictment does not name Adani Group itself, but refers to an unnamed “Indian renewable energy company” that was a “portfolio company of an Indian conglomerate.”
Meanwhile, the SEC’s complaint directly names Adani Green Energy Ltd., a division of Adani Group.
Adani Group denied the allegations in a statement on Thursday, calling them “unfounded.”
“The Adani Group remains steadfast in upholding and upholding the highest standards of governance, transparency and regulatory compliance across all jurisdictions of its operations,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We assure our stakeholders, partners, and employees that we are a law-abiding organization that fully complies with all laws.”
Shares of Adani group companies plunged in India on Thursday following the news, CNBC reported. Mainstay Adani Enterprises fell 23%, while Adani Energy fell 20%. Adani Green Energy, the company at the center of the bribery scandal, fell 18.95%.
Adani Green Energy also scrapped plans to sell $600 million in US dollar-denominated bonds.
India’s opposition parties accused Adani of benefiting from his strong ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We know that there are no government institutions that can help put Mr. Adani in the right position,” Indian National Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday. “We know that because the whole government is controlled by the prime minister.”
Last year, a prominent U.S. short seller, a company that bets on falling prices in other companies’ stocks, accused Adani Group of fraud, highlighting alleged discrepancies in official filings.
Adani Group shares tumbled on short-seller Hindenburg Research’s findings, but eventually recovered after a favorable ruling in connection with a petition by India’s Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Modi has not publicly commented on Hindenburg.
“Our view has never wavered since we released our January 2023 report identifying Adani as the largest corporate fraud in history,” Hindenburg said in an email statement Wednesday. has never disputed our findings.”
