A federal court in New York indicted for corruption the multi-billionaire Gautam Adaniamong the richest men in the world. The Indian tycoon and chairman of the Adani Group conglomerate is accused in the United States of masterminding a more than $250 million scheme of bribes to government officials in New Delhi in exchange for favors for the Adani Energy Group company on contracts for various projects, including the one for the construction of the largest photovoltaic park in India.
The indictment
According to what is reconstructed in the 54 pages of the indictment, the billionaire, with other managers of Adani Energy subsidiaries and former officials of a Canadian pension fund, is allegedly involved in a ring of bribes against government personnel and heads of some Indian states, from Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu, for an operation that should have earned the Group profits for over 2 billion in 20 years.
US federal prosecutors accuse Adani of trying to bribe the executives of some local electricity distribution operators to buy energy at a high price by a state company (Seci), which in turn would have bought it from the solar park of Adani Green Energy and Azure Power Global, the latter company held more than 50% by a Canadian pension fund.
The over 250 million dollars would therefore have been offered between 2020 and 2024 to officials of the Indian government, thus defrauding US banks and investors, who had invested part of their money in the project. 3 billion collected by the energy company from 2021.
Although the conglomerate has denied the accusations, branded as “baseless”, following the arrest warrant for the tycoon, the securities of the companies of the Adani empire are collapsed in Asian markets losing tens of billions of capitalization and forcing the Adani Group to suspend sales: at the opening of the Mumbai Stock Exchange, the shares of Adani Enterprises fell by 10%, while those of the subsidiary Adani Energy Solutions suffered a drop of almost 20 %.
The personal wealth of Gautam Adani, the second richest man in Asia, at the head of an empire that ranges from airports to renewable energy, according to Forbes estimates, would have dropped by 12 billion in a single day.
Who is Gautam Adani
In addition to indicting Adani, the US investigation also calls into question its operations in the renewable energy sector, a sector in which the conglomerate has been trying to establish itself as a key player for years.
Born into a middle-class family in Ahmedabad, the 62-year-old multi-billionaire is considered a friend of the Indian prime minister Narendra Modioriginally from the Indian state of Gujarat like him, to whom he lent a private jet to campaign, also buying a television channel critical of the prime minister.
After dropping out of college to become a diamond trader in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, he began importing plastics in the 1980s and then founded Adani Enterprises, the company from which he built his fortunes.
Following a report by investment firm Hindenburg Research, which accused him of stock market “manipulation” and accounting fraud in 2023, Adani reportedly lost 80 billion from his assetswhile the value of his company would have dropped by over 150 billion.
