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Billionaire Gautam Adani has been charged by United States prosecutors over his role in an alleged years-long scheme to pay $250 million bribes to Indian officials in exchange for favourable terms for solar power contracts.
US prosecutors charged Adani, 62, his nephew Sagar and other defendants for paying over $250 million in bribes between 2020 and 2024 to Indian government officials to win solar energy contracts on terms that could potentially bring in more than $2 billion in profit.
This, they alleged, was concealed from the US banks and investors from whom the Adani group raised billions of dollars for the project.
US law allows pursuing foreign corruption allegations if they involve certain links to American investors or markets.
The Adani group did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
'The defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars,' Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which brought the case, said in a statement.
Adani, chairman of the ports-to-energy Adani Group, his nephew Sagar R Adani, who is an executive director at the conglomerate's renewable energy arm Adani Green Energy Ltd, and its former CEO Vineet Jain were charged with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy.
The Adanis were also charged in a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) civil case.
The five-count indictment also accuses Sagar Adani and Jain of breaking federal laws.
The US authorities also charged three former employees of a large Canadian pension fund, CDPQ, in connection with the alleged scheme, saying they obstructed an investigation into the bribes by deleting e-mails and agreeing to provide false information to the US government.
CDPQ, which invests in infrastructure projects, is a shareholder in Adani companies.
The indictment may throw the conglomerate again in a turmoil just as it rebounded from US short seller Hindenburg Reseach's damning fraud allegations.
Hindenburg allegations of 'brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud' in January 2023 had led to the conglomerate seeing $150 billion wipeout in market value at its lowest point. The group stocks have since recovered most of the losses.
The Adani Group had denied all allegations made by Hindenburg.
'Specifically, on or about March 17, 2023, FBI special agents approached Sagar Adani in the United States and pursuant to a judicially authorised search warrant, took custody of electronic devices in his possession,' the court document said.
Some conspirators, according to the documents, referred privately to Gautam Adani with the code names 'Numero uno' and 'the big man', while his nephew allegedly used his cellphone to track specifics about the bribes.
'On or about March 18, 2023, the defendant Gautam S Adani emailed himself photographs of each page of the search warrant executed and grand jury subpoena served on the defendant Sagar R Adani,' it said.
Others who were criminally charged include Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, respectively a former CEO and former chief strategy and commercial officer of Azure Power Global, which authorities said agreed to pay some of the bribes.
The complaint charges them with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and seeks permanent injunctions, civil penalties, and officer and director bars.
During the alleged scheme, Adani Green raised more than $175 million from US investors and Azure Power's stock was traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the SEC said in a statement.
Simultaneously, the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York unsealed criminal charges against Adani and Sagar Adani, Cyril Cabanes, and others linked to Adani Green and Azure Power.
The federal indictment unsealed in a federal court in Brooklyn charges five others with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with the bribery scheme, involving one of the world's largest solar energy projects.
The press release (external link) issued by the office of the attorney for the Eastern District of New York.