The second-richest person in India, Gautam Adani, has been charged with fraud by U.S. authorities on charges that he and a number of accused co-conspirators attempted to bribe Indian officials with $250 million.
The executives, the majority of whom are Indian, were charged by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, New York, on Wednesday with obtaining money from U.S. investors and other foreign lenders by making false and deceptive claims. Authorities also claim that the executives bribed Indian officials in order to secure billions of dollars in solar power contracts.
In a statement released with the indictment, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace claimed that the defendants had planned a complex plot to bribe Indian government officials in order to obtain contracts valued at billions of dollars. The defendants subsequently attempted to obtain money from foreign and American investors by lying about the bribery plot, according to Peace.
Prosecutors said the scam took place between 2020 and this year.
Adani’s nephew, Sagar Adani, is also included as a defendant. Charges of civil fraud were separately announced by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.
According to Forbes, Gautam Adani is worth over $70 billion. He is the head of the Adani Group, an industrial conglomerate that owns shares in energy and logistics companies. The accusation, which refers to an unidentified Indian renewable energy company that was a portfolio company of an Indian conglomerate, does not name the Adani Group directly.
Meanwhile, Adani Green Energy Ltd., a division of the Adani Group, is specifically named in the SEC lawsuit.
A well-known short-seller, or corporation that wagers on the decline in the value of another company’s stock, accused Adani Group of fraud last year, pointing to purported inconsistencies in its official documents.
Adani Group shares fell after the conclusions of the short-seller Hindenburg Research, but they eventually rose after the Indian Supreme Court issued a positive decision regarding the claims.
Additionally, India’s opposition party has emphasized that Adani has gained direct assistance from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Adani representatives were not immediately available for comment.
We have maintained our position that Adani is the biggest corporate scam in history ever since we published our research in January 2023. Neither has Adani ever denied our results, Hindenburg stated in an emailed statement.
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