Industrialist Gautam Adani has been indicted in New York for his alleged role in a multibillion-dollar bribery and fraud scheme related to his solar projects in India, the United States Attorney’s office for the Eastern District said on Wednesday.
The prosecutor said that the founder of the Adani Group and seven others, including his nephew Sagar Adani, agreed to pay over $265 million, or nearly Rs 2,236 crore, in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain contracts expected to yield a profit of $2 billion, or nearly Rs 16,880 crore, over 20 years.
Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Vneet S Jaain, a former executive at Adani Green Energy, also raised over $3 billion, or nearly Rs 25,322 crore, in loans and bonds by hiding their corruption from lenders and investors, the prosecutor said.
Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Jaain were charged with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani were also charged in a US Securities and Exchange Commission civil case.
The charges come nearly two years after the American short-seller Hindenburg Research accused the Adani Group of pulling off the “largest con in corporate history” through accounting fraud, improper use of tax havens and money laundering. The Adani Group rejected these allegations, but the report pummeled the stocks of its listed companies and wiped out $111 billion of investors’ money.
Various US authorities had last year initiated an inquiry into the representations made by the Adani Group to its American investors in the wake of the allegations of stock manipulation by Hindenburg Research.
Leave feedback about this