NEW YORK, Nov 21 (APP/DNA):Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has been charged by U.S. federal prosecutors with defrauding investors and orchestrating a covert scheme to bribe officials in India and concealing it to raise money in the US, according to American media reports.
Adani, ranked among the world’s wealthiest individuals, built his fortune in the coal business in the 1990s in India and has since been a power player in
India.
According to Forbes, Adani is worth $69.8 billion, which makes him the world’s 22nd richest person.
The close associate of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a fellow Gujarati, is alleged to have agreed to pay more than $265 million in bribes to Indian officials for lucrative solar energy supply contracts.
In the indictment unsealed in New York, prosecutors alleged the tycoon and other senior executives had agreed to the payments to Indian officials to win contracts for his renewable energy company expected to yield more than $2 billion in profits over 20 years.
The Adani Group, which he chairs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shares of Adani Group firms fell more than 10% in Thursday morning trade, with the group losing around $30 billion in market capitalization. Adani Green Energy, which is the firm at the centre of the allegations, also said it wouldn’t proceed with a $600 million bond offering.
The conglomerate has been operating under a cloud in the US since 2023, when a high-profile company published a report accusing it of fraud. The claims, which Adani denied, prompted a major market sell-off.
Reports of this bribery probe have been circling for months. Prosecutors said the US started investigating the company in 2022, and found the inquiry obstructed.
They allege that executives raised $3 billion in loans and bonds, including from US firms, on the backs of false and misleading statements related to the firm’s anti-bribery practices and policies, as well as reports of the bribery probe.
“As alleged, the defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars and… lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from U.S. and international investors,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement announcing the charges.
“My office is committed to rooting out corruption in the international marketplace and protecting investors from those who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the integrity of our financial markets,” he added.
On several occasions Adani met personally with government officials to advance the bribery scheme, officials said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a parallel civil case saying Adani Green Energy raised more than $175 million from U.S. investors. One of Adani’s associates was charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits companies that operate in the United States from bribing foreign officials.
Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center, called the charges a “body blow” to Adani.
“For the last nearly two years, Mr Adani has been trying to rehabilitate his image, and [trying] to show that those earlier fraud allegations levelled by the Hindenburg group were not true, and his company and his businesses had actually been doing quite well,” he told BBC.
But it might be harder for the billionaire, he said, to “shake off” the allegations made by the US Department of Justice.
The US Attorney positions in the US are appointed by the president. The filing comes just weeks after former president Donald Trump won election to the White House, pledging to overhaul the US Justice Department.
Last week on social media, Adani congratulated Trump on his election win and pledged to invest $10 billion in the US.
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