Gautam Adani accused of fraud and bribery in New York, group's shares crashed

Gautam Adani Fraud Case: In a hearing held in the Federal Court of New York, 8 people including Gautam Adani have been accused of fraud and bribery worth billions. The United States Attorney's Office says that Adani gave or is planning to give a bribe of $ 250 million (about Rs 2110 crore) to Indian officials to get a contract related to solar energy in India.

This whole matter is related to Adani Group company Adani Green Energy Limited and another firm. On 24 October 2024, this case was registered in the US Court, which was heard on Wednesday. Apart from Adani, the other 7 people involved are Sagar Adani, Vineet S Jain, Ranjit Gupta, Cyril Cabanis, Saurabh Agarwal, Deepak Malhotra and Rupesh Agarwal.

Adani is accused of lying to American, foreign investors and banks to raise this bribe money. Sagar and Vineet are officials of Adani Green Energy Limited. Sagar is Gautam Adani's nephew. According to a Reuters report, an arrest warrant has been issued against Gautam Adani and Sagar.

The case was registered in the US because the money of US investors was invested in the project and under US law, giving that money as a bribe is a crime.

On Wednesday itself, Adani had announced to raise $ 600 million (Rs 5064 crore) from the sale of 20-year green bonds. A few hours later, he has been charged with fraud.

Allegations leveled against Adani by the US Attorney's Office...

Between 2020 and 2024, all the accused including Adani agreed to pay a bribe of $ 250 million (Rs 2110 crore) to Indian officials to get the solar energy contract of the Government of India. The project was estimated to generate profits of more than $ 2 billion (Rs 16881 crore) in 20 years.

Adani met an Indian government official to take the scheme forward. Sagar and Vineet held several meetings to work on the scheme.

The court said that Cyril Cabanis, Saurabh Agarwal, Deepak Malhotra and Rupesh Agarwal conspired to prevent the investigation of the Grand Jury, FBI and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the bribery scheme. These four also deleted emails, messages and analysis related to the scheme.

Adani Green Energy raised a total of $ 3 billion (Rs 25321 crore) from US investors and international lenders to fund the contract.

Sagar Adani manages the energy business

Gautam Adani's nephew, Sagar has an economics degree from Brown University US. Sagar joined the Adani Group in 2015. Sagar manages the energy business and finance of the group. He focuses on renewable energy business and plans to make the company the world's largest renewable energy producer by 2030.

Adani Green Energy has a clean energy portfolio of over 20 GW

Adani Green Energy Limited has a clean energy portfolio of over 20 GW, including one of the world's largest solar power plants in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The Adani Group aims to become the country's largest company in this sector by 2030. The company's market cap is Rs 1.85 lakh crore.

Adani Green Energy shares down 17.32%

With the market open, all 10 shares of Adani Group are trading with a decline. Adani Energy Solutions shares have hit a lower circuit of 20%. Whereas, Adani Green Energy shares are down 17.32%.

Adani had announced to invest in America last week

Adani had recently announced to invest $10 billion (Rs 84406 crore) in America, which was expected to create 15,000 jobs.