Kumar Bahukhandi
India’s richest billionaire businessman Gautam Adani is in trouble again. Gautam Adani has been accused of paying a bribe of $265 million (about Rs 2236 crore) to get a solar energy contract in the USA and hiding it. 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 of dollars. This entire case is related to Adani Group’s company Adani Green Energy Limited and another firm.
Sagar and Vineet are officers 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 American investors was invested in the project and under US law, giving that money as a bribe is a crime.
The United States Attorney’s Office says that Adani had promised to give a bribe of $265 million (about Rs 2236 crore) to Indian officials to get a contract related to solar energy in India.
What were the allegations against Adani?
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US on Wednesday filed charges against Gautam Adani’s nephew Sagar Adani, officials of Adani Green Energy Limited and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of another firm Azure Power Global Limited, in this case. The report said that Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar along with seven other defendants had agreed to pay bribes of about $ 265 million to Indian government officials to get contracts for their renewable energy company and develop India’s largest solar power plant project. Shivraj Singh Chouhan: Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s big claim amid voting in Jharkhand, said – ‘Roti-Beti aur Mati Sankat Mein, Log Corrupt and Anti-People Government Ko…’, A case related to profits of $ 2 billion It was claimed that this whole matter is related to profits of billions of dollars. The report said that prosecutors have alleged that through this contract, the Adani Group was expected to make a profit of more than $ 2 billion in 20 years. These bribes have been alleged to be given to the officials between 2020 and 2024. Along with this, it has also been alleged that lies were told to investors and banks in other countries including the US for this profit. Prosecutors have also claimed that another executive of Adani Green Energy, former CEO Vineet Jain, raised loans and bonds worth more than $3 billion by hiding his corruption from lenders and investors. Let us tell you that Vineet Jain was the CEO of the company from 2020 to 2023.
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 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 over 20 years.
Adani met an Indian government official to move 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 block the investigation of the grand jury, FBI and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the bribery scheme. These four also deleted emails, messages and analyses related to the scheme.
Adani Green Energy raised a total of $3 billion from US investors and international lenders to fund the contract.
