Gautam Adani accused of ‘bribery scheme’ by US prosecutors

The defendants conspired to obstruct justice by deleting electronic evidence and lying to representatives of the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the FBI. The SEC filed a separate civil lawsuit on Wednesday.

Prosecutors said the Adanis and another director and former CEO of Adani Green Energy Vineet Jaain raised more than $3 billion in loans and bonds by hiding their corruption from lenders and investors.

According to the indictment, some conspirators privately referred to Gautam Adani by the code names “Numero uno” and “the big man,” while Sagar Adani allegedly used his cell phone to track down details of the bribes.

The accusations:

The case revolves around an agreement between Adani Green Energy Ltd. and another company to sell 12 gigawatts of solar power to the Indian government. The US indictment accuses them of falsifying data for Wall Street investors to pour several billion dollars into the project over the past five years, while in India the country paid or planned to pay $265 million in bribes to government officials to win contracts.

Meanwhile, in another civil suit, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Adani and two co-defendants of violating the anti-fraud provisions of the U.S. securities laws. The regulator demands fines and other sanctions.

Sanjay Wadhwa, acting director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, told AP that Gautam and Sagar Adani are accused of persuading investors to buy their company’s bonds by misrepresenting “not only that Adani Green had a robust anti- bribery program, but also that the company’s senior managers had not paid bribes and did not want to do so.”