Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has been slapped with criminal fraud charges in the US for allegedly orchestrating a $250m (£198m) bribery scheme to secure lucrative renewable energy contracts in his home country.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, unsealed the five-count indictment on Wednesday, alleging Mr Adani and seven other associates, including nephew Sagar Adani, bribed Indian public officials, concealed the scheme, and made false statements to raise $3bn (£2.4bn) from American and international investors.
Mr Adani, one of the world’s richest people, has faced fraud allegations earlier as well, but denied wrongdoing. He is regarded as a close ally of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
What is the indictment about?
Mr Adani, 62, has been charged with conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, directly advancing the bribery scheme, and obstructing investigations that began in 2022.
The contracts to sell 12 gigawatts of solar power that his conglomerate obtained between 2020 and 2024 in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh allegedly through the bribery scheme are expected to generate over $2bn (£1.58bn) in profit.
“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 for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.
It said the defendants meticulously documented the bribery scheme. Sagar Adani, 30, used his phone to log details of the alleged bribes. Another accused, Vineet S Jaain, 53, photographed documents summarising bribe amounts owed while Rupesh Agarwal created and shared analyses via PowerPoint and Excel outlining strategies to pay and conceal the bribes, the indictment alleged.
How has Mr Adani reacted?
The Adani Group has said the allegations are baseless and vowed to seek “all possible legal recourse”. “Our stakeholders, partners and employees know that we are a law-abiding organisation, fully compliant with all laws,” a spokesperson said.
Lawyers representing Mr Adani have not issued a statement.
How has India reacted to the indictment?
The indictment against Mr Adani has jolted debt and equity markets in India. Adani Group bonds fell in value after the news broke, but the stocks of the conglomerate’s companies stabilised on Friday after having lost nearly $27bn in market value.
India’s main opposition party, the Congress, has called for an investigation into Mr Adani’s ties with the prime minister. “When a top ranking Indian businessman is indicted by a foreign country, it tarnishes our image at the global stage,” the party’s president, Mallikarjun Kharge, said. “The Indian National Congress has been continuously objecting to unethical business practices, which profiteer and promote certain individuals by implementing Modi government’s policy of creating monopolies in key sectors and concentrating wealth in the hands of few by giving undue favours.”
Senior Congress member Jairam Ramesh said the indictment is “consistent with a long record of fraud and criminality carried out with impunity with the obvious protection of the prime minister”.
Adani’s legacy in India
Mr Adani has risen from making a fortune in the coal business in the 1990s to becoming one of the richest and most influential people in India.
His Adani Group has expanded vastly in the past decade or so, with interests ranging from defence manufacturing to infrastructure to selling cooking oil. In recent years, the group has made big moves in the renewable energy sector, marketing this with the slogan, “Growth with Goodness.”
The group has a clean energy portfolio of over 20 gigawatts that includes one of the world’s largest solar power plants in the state of Tamil Nadu.
The Adani Group has said it wants to become India’s biggest player in the sector by 2030.
Mr Adani said in 2022 the company will invest $70 billion in clean energy projects by 2032.
