International
pti-PTI
Indian
businessman
Gautam
Adani
who
is
one
of
the
world’s
richest
people
has
been
indicted
in
the
US
on
charges
he
duped
investors
by
concealing
that
his
company’s
huge
solar
energy
project
on
the
subcontinent
was
being
facilitated
by
an
alleged
bribery
scheme.
Adani,
62,
was
charged
in
an
indictment
unsealed
Wednesday
with
securities
fraud
and
conspiracy
to
commit
securities
and
wire
fraud.
Group
Chairperson
Gautam
Adani
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
paints
Adani
and
his
co-defendants
as
playing
two
sides
of
the
deal.
It
accuses
them
of
portraying
it
as
rosy
and
above-board
to
Wall
Street
investors
who
poured
several
billion
dollars
into
the
project
over
the
last
five
years
while,
back
in
India,
they
were
paying
or
planning
to
pay
about
USD
265
million
in
bribes
to
government
officials
to
help
secure
billions
of
dollars’
worth
of
contracts
and
financing.
Adani
and
his
co-defendants
sought
to
“obtain
and
finance
massive
state
energy
supply
contracts
through
corruption
and
fraud
at
the
expense
of
US
investors,”
Deputy
Assistant
Attorney
General
Lisa
Miller
said.
US
Attorney
Breon
Peace
said
the
defendants
“orchestrated
an
elaborate
scheme”
and
sought
to
“enrich
themselves
at
the
expense
of
the
integrity
of
our
financial
markets.”
In
a
parallel
civil
action,
the
US
Securities
and
Exchange
Commission
accused
Adani
and
two
co-defendants
of
violating
antifraud
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,
the
executive
director
of
Adani
Green
Energy’s
board,
and
Vineet
Jaain,
who
was
the
company’s
chief
executive
from
2020
to
2023
and
remains
managing
director
of
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
an
arm
of
his
conglomerate,
the
Adani
Group.
Emails
were
also
sent
to
lawyers
representing
his
co-defendants.
Sagar
Adani’s
lawyer,
Sean
Hecker,
declined
the
comment.
The
others
did
not
immediately
respond.
Sanjay
Wadhwa,
acting
director
of
the
SEC’s
Enforcement
Division,
said
Gautam
and
Sagar
Adani
are
accused
of
persuading
investors
to
buy
their
company’s
bonds
by
misrepresenting
“not
only
that
Adani
Green
had
a
robust
anti-bribery
compliance
programme
but
also
that
the
company’s
senior
management
had
not
and
would
not
pay
or
promise
to
pay
bribes.”
Adani
is
a
power
player
in
the
world’s
most
populous
nation.
He
built
his
fortune
in
the
coal
business
in
the
1990s.
The
Adani
Group
grew
to
involve
many
aspects
of
Indian
life,
from
making
defence
equipment
to
building
roads
to
selling
cooking
oil.
In
recent
years,
the
Adani
Group
has
made
big
moves
into
renewable
energy,
embracing
a
philosophy
of
sustainable
growth
reflected
in
its
slogan:
“Growth
with
Goodness.”
The
company
has
a
clean
energy
portfolio
of
over
20
gigawatts,
including
one
of
the
world’s
largest
solar
power
plants
in
the
southern
state
of
Tamil
Nadu.
Adani
Group
has
stated
its
goal
of
becoming
the
country’s
biggest
player
in
the
space
by
2030.
In
2022,
Gautam
Adani
said
the
company
would
invest
USD
70
billion
in
clean
energy
projects
by
2032.
Last
year,
a
US-based
financial
research
firm
accused
Adani
and
his
company
of
“brazen
stock
manipulation”
and
“accounting
fraud.”
The
Adani
Group
called
the
claims
“a
malicious
combination
of
selective
misinformation
and
stale,
baseless
and
discredited
allegations.”
The
firm
in
question
is
known
as
a
short-seller,
a
Wall
Street
term
for
traders
that
essentially
bet
on
the
prices
of
certain
stocks
to
fall,
and
it
had
made
such
investments
in
relation
to
the
Adani
Group.
The
company’s
stock
plunged
as
a
result
and
dipped
again
in
August
when
the
firm,
Hindenburg
Research,
levied
more
corruption
allegations.
Jaain
told
The
Associated
Press
last
year
that
Hindenburg’s
allegations
had
little
impact
on
its
ongoing
projects,
including
work
building
20
gigawatts
of
a
solar
and
wind
energy
project
in
the
northwest
Indian
village
of
Khavda.
Prosecutors
allege
that
Adani
and
his
co-defendants
started
plotting
the
bribery
scheme
in
2020
or
2021
to
guarantee
demand
for
the
energy
that
Adani
Green
and
another
firm
were
under
contract
to
produce
for
the
national
government’s
Solar
Energy
Corporation
of
India.
Adani
Green
and
the
other
firm’s
high
prices
turned
off
India’s
state-run
electricity
distributors,
which
buy
power
from
the
national
government
and
provide
it
to
homes
and
businesses.
But
the
companies
needed
those
deals
to
make
the
project
worthwhile
and
keep
revenues
high,
so
they
offered
bribes
to
get
them
done,
prosecutors
said.
After
the
defendants
started
promising
bribes
to
government
officials,
in
2021
and
2022,
electricity
distributors
in
five
Indian
states
or
regions
entered
into
agreements
to
purchase
their
energy,
prosecutors
said.
Adani’s
company
issued
a
statement
in
which
he
touted
his
deals
as
the
“world’s
largest”
power
purchase
agreement.
At
the
same
time,
prosecutors
said,
the
Adanis
and
Jaain
were
attesting
to
global
investors
that
Adani
Green
was
and
would
never
be
involved
in
bribery.
Those
claims
enabled
them
to
secure
billions
of
dollars
in
financing
for
the
project
at
terms
that
“did
not
account
for
the
true
risk”
involved,
prosecutors
said.
