Indian billionaire Gautam Adani charged by US over alleged US$250m bribe plot

WASHINGTON – US prosecutors charged Gautam Adani, one of the world’s richest people, with participating in a scheme that involved promising to pay more than US$250 million (S$336 million) in bribes to Indian government officials to secure solar energy contracts.

Prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, alleged on Nov 20 that Adani and other defendants lied about the plan as they sought to raise money from US investors. The five-count indictment also accuses Sagar R. Adani and Vneet S. Jaain, executives at an Indian renewable-energy company, of breaking federal laws.

“The defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars,” Mr Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. 

US authorities had been investigating whether Adani Group may have engaged in bribery as well as the conduct of the company’s billionaire founder. The probe looked into whether there were improper payments made to officials in India for favorable treatment on an energy project. 

Phone calls and emails to Adani Group’s US offices weren’t immediately returned.

Prosecutors also charge that four other defendants conspired to obstruct justice by deleting electronic evidence and lying to representatives of the Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission and FBI. The SEC filed a separate civil lawsuit on Nov 20. BLOOMBERG