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Authorities said Adani and seven other senior business executives, including his nephew Sagar Adani, promised more than $250 million (about A$384 million) in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar contracts.
The kickbacks were “to lie to investors and banks to raise billions of dollars and obstruct justice,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa Miller said in a statement Wednesday.
He is the founder of the large Indian conglomerate Adani Group.
The solar supply contracts were projected to generate more than $2 billion in after-tax profits over a period of approximately 20 years.
Authorities said Adani met personally with an Indian government official to advance the plan, which took place between 2020 and 2024.
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The accused met frequently and discussed the bribery scheme, including evidence on several telephones.
Part of that documentation included a cell phone for extensive tracking of specific details about the bribe, a photo of a document summarizing various bribe amounts, and PowerPoint and Excel analyzes “summarizing various options for payment and concealment of bribe giving,” the Ministry said in a statement. .
Adani and his associates tried to hide those bribery schemes from U.S. investors “in order to obtain financing, including the financing of those solar power supply contracts procured through bribery,” the DOJ said.
In a parallel action, the Securities and Exchange Commission also charged Adanis (as executives of Adani Green Energy Ltd) and Cyril Cabanes, CEO of Azure Power Global, in a bribery scheme that the SEC said allowed both companies to take advantage of lucrative capital. Indian Government contract.
The SEC said Adani Green raised more than $175 million from US investors on those false statements.
Adani was accused by American short-seller Hindenburg Research of “brazen stock manipulation and an accounting fraud scheme” in January 2023.
Adani’s fortune – which at one point in 2022 was worth more than Jeff Bezos – fell over $80 billion after the report.
The Adani Group issued a 400-page rebuttal, calling Hindenburg’s analysis “nothing but a lie”.
Adani is considered a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and began his career in the diamond trade.
He founded a commodities trading company in 1988, which later evolved into Adani Enterprises, and now has businesses in key sectors from ports and energy to media and clean energy.
CNN has reached out to Adani Enterprises for comment.
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