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Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, one of the world’s richest people, was indicted by U.S. prosecutors for his alleged role in a $265 million bribery scheme, plunging his conglomerate deep into crisis for the second time in two years.
Adani, 62, was charged in a five-count criminal indictment unsealed Wednesday with conspiracies to commit securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The billionaire, along with the seven other defendants, were accused of paying about $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain solar energy contracts worth more than $2 billion in profits.
“These offenses were allegedly committed by senior executives and directors to obtain and finance massive state energy supply contracts through corruption and fraud at the expense of U.S. investors,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Miller said in a statement.
Prosecutors alleged that Adani and his co-defendants held in-person meetings with each other between 2020 and 2024 to discuss the bribery scheme. According to an indictment, some conspirators referred privately to Adani with the code names “Numero uno” and “the big man.”
During that period, Adani also personally met with an Indian government official to advance the scheme. Prosecutors said the defendants “extensively documented their corrupt efforts,” including using cellphones to track briberies and distributing analyses on PowerPoint and Excel that detailed various methods for paying and concealing bribe payments.
Prosecutors also alleged that Adani and two executives at Adani Green Energy, his nephew Sagar Adani and former CEO Vneet Jaain, raised more than $3 billion in loans and bonds for the contracts by misleading lenders and investors about their compliance with anti-bribery and corruption practices.
Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, and Jaain were charged with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. In a parallel action, the Adanis were also charged in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil case for violating security laws.
The other five defendants were charged with conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a federal anti-bribery law, and four were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice.
A spokesperson for U.S. Attorney Breon Peace told Reuters that none of the defendants are in custody and that Gautam Adani is believed to be in India.
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Who is Gautam Adani?
Gautam Adani has a total net worth of $85.5 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His fortune makes him the 18th-richest person in the world, and the second-richest person in Asia behind Reliance Industries Chair Mukesh Ambani, the index states.
Adani was born in India’s Gujarat state and dropped out of school at age 16. He is the chair of Indian conglomerate Adani Group, which he founded in 1988 as a commodities trading business.
Adani grew the business into an empire that now has holdings in sea and airport management, power generation and transmission, mining, and infrastructure, among other industries.
Wednesday’s indictment came hours after Adani raised $600 million by selling 20-year “green” bonds. Last week, Adani announced on X, formerly Twitter, that his conglomerate planned to invest $10 billion in U.S. energy security and infrastructure projects.
In January 2023, the Adani Group was accused by U.S. short-seller Hindenburg Research of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud,” which the company denied. The report caused a significant drop, about $150 billion, in Adani Group stocks.
Adani has long been perceived as a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is also from Gujarat. Adani’s relationship with Modi dates back to 2002 and the two established a close bond as they rose to prominence in business and politics, according to The Guardian and CNBC.
Political opponents of Modi have accused him of protecting Adani and his companies, including from Hindenburg’s accusations. Modi has dismissed these claims as “lies and abuses.”
Who are the other defendants in the bribery scheme?
Wednesday’s indictment also charges Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, respectively a former CEO and former chief strategy and commercial officer of Azure Power Global, which prosecutors said had securities that traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
The other criminal defendants — Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, and Deepak Malhotra — are former employees of Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, a Canadian institutional investor, according to prosecutors. Cabanes, who was also an Azure director, was charged alongside the Adanis in the Securities and Exchange Commission civil case.
All of the defendants in the bribery scheme are Indian citizens, except for Cabanes, who is a dual French-Australian citizen who lived in Singapore, prosecutors said.
According to court records, a judge has issued arrest warrants for Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, and prosecutors plan to hand those warrants to foreign law enforcement.
Contributing: Reuters
