Indian billionaire Gautam Adani charged with fraud

NEW YORK

An Indian businessman who is one of the world’s richest people has been indicted in the U.S. on charges he duped investors in a massive solar energy project in his home country by concealing that it was being facilitated by an alleged bribery scheme.

Gautam Adani, 62, was charged in an indictment unsealed on Nov. 20 with securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities and wire fraud.

He is accused of defrauding investors who poured several billion dollars into the project by failing to tell them about a plan to secure lucrative solar energy supply contracts by paying more than $250 million in bribes paid to Indian officials.

Several other people connected to Adani, his businesses and the project were also charged.

The indictment alleges they sought to “obtain and finance massive state energy supply contracts through corruption and fraud at the expense of U.S. investors,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa Miller said.

Adani is a power player in the world’s most populous nation.

He built his fortune in the coal business in the 1990s. The Adani Group grew to involve many aspects of Indian life, from making defense equipment to building roads to selling cooking oil.

In recent years, Adani has made big moves into renewable energy, embracing a philosophy of sustainable growth reflected in its slogan: “Growth with Goodness.”

Last year, a U.S.-based financial research firm accused Adani and his company of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.”

The Adani Group called the claims “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.”