Billionaire Gautam Adani accused of fraud and corruption in New York

Gautam Adani, chairman of India’s Adani Group and one of the world’s richest people, was indicted along with seven other men in a New York federal court on charges related to a massive corruption and fraud scheme, it was announced authorities on Wednesday.

Adani and several other defendants are accused in the indictment of paying more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain solar power contracts worth more than $2 billion in profits.

The 62-year-old billionaire and two executives of Adani Green Energy Limited, his nephew Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain, are accused of misleading American and international investors about their company’s compliance with anti-corruption practices while they raised over $3 billion in capital. to finance these energy contracts.

Adanis and Jaain are both charged with securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy and securities fraud.

The five-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn also charges Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, former executives of the renewable energy company Azure Power Global, as well as three former employees of the Canadian institutional investor Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec. : Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra.

These defendants are charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with the bribery scheme of Adani and other members of the energy company.

Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, Malhotra and Rupesh Agarwal are also charged with conspiring to obstruct U.S. federal and Securities and Exchange Commission criminal investigations into the bribery scheme.

Although the alleged criminal activity at the center of the indictment occurred in India, the defendants are charged in federal court in Brooklyn due to alleged actions that occurred in the Eastern District of New York in connection with the corruption scheme and the capital raising effort.

These actions included alleged misrepresentations of material facts or omissions in statements related to a bond issuance that raised capital for the solar power contracts.

None of the defendants are detained in the United States. All of the defendants, except Cabanes, live in India. Cabanes resides in France and Australia, according to prosecutors.

The SEC on Wednesday filed civil complaints against Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, as well as Cabanes, who is an executive at Azure Power Global, in connection with allegations of corruption that allegedly allowed Adani Green Energy and Azure to capitalize on contracts solar energy allocated by the Indian government. .

The SEC complaints state that during the alleged scheme, Adani Green raised more than $175 million from U.S. investors and that Azure’s shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Gautam and Sagar Adani orchestrated a corruption scheme that involved paying or promising to pay the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials to secure their commitment to purchase energy at above-market rates, which would benefit Adani Green and Azure Power,” the SEC said.

“Cabanes allegedly facilitated the authorization of bribes in connection with this scheme in the United States and abroad,” the agency said.

Gautam Adani is the second richest person in Asia, with a reported net worth of $85 billion.

He lost tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth in early 2023 when short-selling firm Hindenburg Research released a report accusing Adani Group of engaging in “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud” over the decades.”

Hindenburg’s report calls it “the biggest scam in corporate history.”

Adani issued a 413-page response to Hindenburg, calling the allegations baseless.