Billionaire Gautam Adani - chairman of India's Adani Group and one of the world's richest men - was indicted in New York for his role in a multibillion-dollar fraud and bribery scheme, US prosecutors said on November 20.
With a multi-industry business empire ranging from coal, airports, cement and media, in recent years, the chairman of the Adani Group has been repeatedly accused of fraud and affected by the stock market crash.
US authorities allege that between 2020 and 2024, billionaire Adani and two other executives at Adani Green Energy - his nephew Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain - agreed to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar power contracts expected to generate $2 billion in profits over about 20 years.
According to the indictment, some of the conspirators referred to billionaire Gautam Adami by the code names “Numero uno” and “big man”, while Sagar Adani allegedly used his mobile phone to track details of the bribes.
The Indian billionaire's renewable energy company also raised more than $3 billion in loans and bonds during this period based on false and misleading disclosures, US prosecutors said.
This incident violates anti-bribery laws in the United States.
According to Forbes magazine, billionaire Gautam Adani, 62, has assets worth 69.8 billion USD. With this amount of assets, he is the 22nd richest person in the world and the 2nd richest person in India, after Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani.
Other defendants in the case include: Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, former chief executive officer and former chief strategy and commercial officer of Azure Power Global; Cyril Cabanes, director of Azure Power Global.
Prosecutors said seven of the defendants were Indian nationals living in India during the relevant period, while Cabanes was a dual French-Australian citizen living in Singapore.
A US judge has issued arrest warrants for Indian billionaires Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, and US prosecutors plan to hand those warrants over to foreign law enforcement, according to court records.
