An Indian businessman who is one of the richest people in the world He has been accused in the US of defrauding investors by hiding that his company's massive solar power project in the subcontinent was allegedly being facilitated by a $265 million bribery scheme.
Gautam Adani, 62, was charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities and wire fraud in an indictment filed Wednesday. The case involves a lucrative arrangement for Adani Green Energy Ltd. and another firm to sell 12 gigawatts of solar power to the Indian government – enough to light millions of homes and businesses.
The indictment portrays Adani and his co-defendants as playing two sides to the deal.
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It accused him of portraying it as attractive and insulting to Wall Street investors who had invested billions of dollars in the project, while in India they were paying about 265 million rupees to government officials in exchange for billions of dollars. Were giving or planning to give bribe of million dollars. Dollar value contracts and financing.
Adani and his co-defendants allegedly sought to “obtain and finance massive state energy supply contracts at the expense of American investors through corruption and fraud,” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa Miller.
In a parallel civil action, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Adani and two co-defendants with violating anti-fraud provisions of US securities laws. The regulator is seeking monetary penalties and other sanctions.
Both cases were filed in federal court in Brooklyn. Adani's co-defendants include his nephew Sagar Adani, an executive director on the board of Adani Green Energy, and Vineet Jain, who was the company's chief executive from 2020 to 2023 and remains a managing director on its board.
Online court records did not list a lawyer who could speak on Adani's behalf. An email message seeking comment was left with a branch of his group, Adani Group. Emails were also sent to lawyers representing his co-defendants. Sagar Adani's lawyer Sean Hecker declined to comment. Others did not respond immediately.
Sanjay Wadhwa, acting director of the SEC's enforcement division, said Gautam and Sagar Adani are accused of unfairly inducing investors to buy their company's bonds, “not only that Adani Green had a robust anti-bribery compliance program. Not only that, I will not give any bribe to the senior management of the company nor will I promise to give it.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Adani is the 19th richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of around $85.5 billion. However, this is significantly lower than 2022, when briefly overtaken Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is second in the list with a net worth of more than $146 billion.
He is a power player in the world's most populous country. He made his fortune in the coal business in the 1990s. From manufacturing defense equipment to building roads to selling cooking oil, the Adani Group covered many aspects of Indian life.
In recent years, Adani has taken major steps into renewable energy, adopting the philosophy of sustainable development reflected in its slogan: “Growth with goodness”.
Last year, a US-based financial research firm Adani accused and his company for “shameless stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.” Adani Group called the claims a “malicious combination of selective misinformation and outdated, baseless and discredited allegations”.
The firm in question is known as a short-seller, a Wall Street term for traders who essentially bet on a decline in the prices of certain stocks, and it had made such investments in connection with the Adani Group.