Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is facing criminal fraud charges in the US for allegedly orchestrating a $250m (£198m) bribery scheme to secure lucrative renewable energy contracts in his home country.
Prosecutors claim that Mr Adani and seven other executives bribed Indian government officials, concealed the scheme and made false anti-corruption statements to raise $3bn (£2.4bn) from US and international investors.
The investigation, which started in 2022, accuses Mr Adani of obstructing inquiries and directly advancing the scheme.
Mr Adani, an ally of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, has faced fraud allegations previously as well but denied any wrongdoing.
“As alleged, the defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars and Gautam S Adani, Sagar R Adani and Vneet S Jaain lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from US and international investors,” US attorney Breon Peace said.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, unsealed the indictment of five counts on Wednesday, accusing Mr Adani and his associates of orchestrating the scheme to secure lucrative solar energy contracts in India.
The contracts, obtained between 2020 and 2024, are expected to generate over $2bn (£1.58bn) in profit.
The other defendants named by US prosecutors are Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, former executives of a renewable energy firm listed in the US, and Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra, employees of a Canadian institutional investor.
They are accused of conspiring to obstruct investigations by a grand jury, the FBI and the US Securities and Exchange Commission by destroying evidence, withholding information during an internal inquiry, and falsely denying involvement in the bribery scheme during meetings with US authorities.
The charges come amid heightened scrutiny of Mr Adani’s business practices in India.
“On several occasions, Gautam S Adani personally met with an Indian government official to advance the bribery scheme and the defendants held in-person meetings with each other to discuss aspects of its execution. The defendants frequently discussed their efforts in furtherance of the bribery scheme, including through an electronic messaging application,” the US Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York said in a statement.
It said the defendants meticulously documented the bribery scheme. For example, Sagar Adani, 30, used his phone to log details of bribes offered to officials. Mr Jaain, 53, photographed documents summarising bribe amounts owed. Rupesh Agarwal created and shared analyses via PowerPoint and Excel, outlining strategies to pay and conceal the bribes, the prosecutors alleged.
In a statement released on Thursday, Adani Group said the allegations made by the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission against directors of Adani Green are baseless and denied all wrongdoing. The group’s spokesperson said all possible legal recourse will be sought.
The conglomerate’s spokesperson assured “our stakeholders, partners and employees that we are a law-abiding organisation, fully compliant with all laws”.
Asia’s second-richest person, who narrowly escaped death in 2008 as one of many people stuck inside Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace Hotel when gunmen went on a killing spree, faces a US arrest warrant and criminal penalties over the fraud and bribery charges.
— Adani Group (@AdaniOnline) November 21, 2024
Mr Adani’s businesses, ranging from power and ports to sugar and soybeans, lost more than $150bn in combined market value last year after US-based short seller Hindenburg Research accused his eponymous group of using offshore tax havens improperly. The group, which recouped some of the losses and now has a combined valuation of $141bn, denied all of the allegations.
Before shares in Adani Group companies tanked last year, the 62-year-old high school dropout had briefly become the world’s wealthiest person after Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Mr Adani is now the 25th richest person with a net worth of about $57.6bn, according to Forbes.
Born on 24 June 1962 in Ahmedabad city in the western state of Gujarat – also Mr Modi’s home state – Adani dropped out of school at age 16 after completing the 10th grade.
He set up Adani Group in 1988, beginning with commodities trading. He came from a middle-class textile family to build his riches, unlike many other billionaires who inherit their wealth.
Married to dentist Priti Adani, he has two sons, Karan and Jeet, both of whom are involved in the company businesses, like many others in the family.
