Gautam Adani, chair of Indian conglomerate Adani Group, addresses a gathering during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2024 in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India, Jan. 10, 2024.
Punit Paranjpe | AFP | Getty Images
Gautam Adani, chair of India’s Adani Group and one of the world’s richest people, was indicted with others on bribery and fraud charges unsealed Wednesday in federal court in New York.
Andani and other defendants are accused of bribing Indian government officials more than $250 million in bribes to obtain solar energy supply contracts worth more than $2 billion in profits.
The 62-year-old and two executives in Adani Green Energy Limited — his nephew Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain — are also charged with misleading U.S. and international investors about their company’s compliance with anti-bribery and anti-corruption practices as they raised more than $3 billion in capital to fund the energy contracts.
The five-count indictment in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn also charged Ranjit Gupta and Rupash Agarwal, former executives in the renewable-energy company Azure Power Global, and three former employees of the Canadian institutional investor Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec: Cyril Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal and Deepak Malhotra.
A worker walks past rows of solar panels at the Adani Group- owned Khavda Renewable Energy Park in Khavda, India, Jan. 12, 2024.
Punit Paranjpe | Afp | Getty Images
Those defendants are accused of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with the bribery scheme by Adani and the others at the energy company.
Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, Malhotra and Rupash Agarwal are also accused of conspiring to obstruct U.S. federal criminal and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations into the bribery scheme.
Gautam Adani is the second richest person in Asia, with a reported net worth of $85 billion.
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