Billionaire Gautam Adani of India's Adani Group charged in US with bribery, fraud

NEW YORK: Gautam Adani, the billionaire chair of Indian conglomerate Adani Group and one of the world's richest people, has been indicted in New York over his role in an alleged multibillion-dollar bribery and fraud scheme, US prosecutors said on Wednesday (Nov 20).

With a business empire spanning coal, airports, cement and media, the chairman of Adani Group has been rocked in recent years by corporate fraud allegations and a stock crash.

Authorities charged Adani and two other executives at Adani Green Energy, his nephew Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain, with agreeing between 2020 and 2024 to pay more than US$250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain solar energy supply contracts expected to yield US$2 billion in profits over roughly 20 years.

According to an indictment, some conspirators referred privately to Gautam Adani with the code names "Numero uno" and "the big man", while Sagar Adani allegedly used his cellphone to track specifics about the bribes.

Prosecutors said the renewable energy company also raised more than US$3 billion in loans and bonds during this period on the basis of false and misleading statements.

The case involves alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a US anti-bribery law.

Adani Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours in India, where the charges were announced early Thursday morning.

India's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Lawyers for the defendants could not immediately be identified.

Gautam Adani, 62, is worth US$69.8 billion according to Forbes magazine, making him the world's 22nd richest person and India's second-richest person behind Reliance Industries Chair Mukesh Ambani.

Among the other defendants are Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, respectively a former chief executive and former chief strategy and commercial officer of Azure Power Global, and Cyril Cabanes, a director there.

The other defendants, as well as Cabanes, also worked for a Canadian institutional investor, prosecutors said.

Seven of the defendants are Indian citizens who lived in India during the relevant period, while Cabanes 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.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Cabanes.

The charges were announced hours after Adani on Wednesday raised US$600 million from a sale of 20-year "green" bonds.

The fallout for the Adani empire was immediate.

Adani Green Energy cancelled plans on Thursday to raise US$600 million in US dollar-denominated bonds, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the matter. 

Adani Green Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the shelved transaction.

In early Asian trading on Thursday, Adani dollar bonds slumped, with prices down between 3-5c on bonds for Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone. The falls were the largest since the Adani Group came under a short-seller attack in February 2023. The Adani Group has not responded to requests for comment on the indictment.

Last week, Gautam Adani said in a post on social media platform X that his conglomerate planned to invest YS$10 billion in US energy security and infrastructure projects, creating a potential 15,000 jobs, without providing a timetable.

Adani announced the investment while also congratulating US President-elect Donald Trump on his election win.

Trump has pledged to make it easier for energy companies to drill on federal land and build new pipelines.

In January 2023, the US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research accused Adani Group of using offshore tax havens improperly, a charge the company denied. The report sparked an approximately US$150 billion meltdown in Adani Group stocks.