On October 9, the Adani Group warned of an upcoming exposé on its operations by Financial Times – a “renewed attempt” to “rehash old and baseless allegations to tarnish the name and standing of the Adani Group”.
Well, the exposé is here and its contents are grim.
The British newspaper yesterday alleged that the Adani Group “has been inflating fuel costs and led millions of Indian consumers and businesses to overpay for electricity”.
It cited customs records of 30 coal shipments over 32 months between 2019 and 2021 to state that the group “used offshore intermediaries in Taiwan, Dubai and Singapore to import $5 billion-worth of coal at prices that were at times more than double the market price” and that during the journeys, the “value of the combined shipments unaccountably increased by over $70 million”.
Did these explosive details make it to the front pages of India’s leading newspapers?
Not quite.
The Telegraph had it on page 1, headlined “Coal taint on Adanis”. It said the group was “rocked by another damning report that claims it imported billions of dollars of coal at prices well above market prices, igniting suspicion that the country’s largest private importer of coal has been inflating fuel costs”.
Indian Express didn’t mention Financial Times but had a front-page report on the coal over-invoicing case filed against the Adani Group by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. It said the matter had been heard four times since November 2019, when the DRI moved the Supreme Court against a Bombay High Court decision in favour of Adani.
We couldn’t find the story in the Delhi editions of The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Times of India or Mint.
It’s not been a great year for the Adani Group. This week’s investigation comes after OCCRP in August investigated alleged stock manipulation by four Adani companies between 2013 and 2017. Read the story on Newslaundry here.
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