Indian energy magnate Gautam Adani, known to be close to power in his country, was indicted on Wednesday by the American courts, which accuse him of having participated in a system of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes. wine.
Already accused of fraud in the past, Gautam Adani is suspected of being involved in this system which aimed to obtain solar energy markets to the detriment of investors in the United States.
The billionaire, close to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has not been arrested, the Brooklyn federal prosecutor's office told AFP.
The 62-year-old businessman is accused, with seven co-defendants, of having participated between 2020 and 2024 in a system of paying bribes of more than $250 million to Indian officials to win “multibillion-dollar” solar energy deals, Brooklyn District Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
According to the prosecutor, Gautam Adani, but also one of his nephews at the head of his group, Sagar Adani, and a third manager would also have hidden “this system of corruption while they sought to raise funds from investors American and international.
Gautam Adani was charged with securities fraud and wire fraud.
According to the prosecution, the suspects “extensively documented their acts of corruption”, notably Sagar Adani with his mobile phone.
Gautam Adani would have had a direct role. He “met personally with a representative of the Indian government to implement this corruption plan and the accused met in person to discuss aspects of its implementation”, accuses the prosecution.
– Five times Paris –
Among the eight charged in this sprawling affair are former employees of a Canadian investment fund, including a French-Australian national residing in Singapore, according to the indictment.
The affair once again throws into trouble the Adani empire, a conglomerate which extends from coal mines to ports and airports via the media, and which has launched a vast offensive on renewable energies for several years, a strategic sector for India – the most populous country in the world and third largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
In its native state of Gujarat, the group notably launched the project for the largest renewable energy park in the world, measuring five times the area of Paris.
Opposition parties and other critics have long accused the famously introverted businessman of taking advantage of his relationship with Narendra Modi, who like him is from Gujarat, to unfairly win contracts and avoid a appropriate control over his business.
In 2023, his group was accused of “brazen manipulation” of its own shares as well as “multi-decade accounting fraud” by the American investment company Hindenburg Research.
Gautam Adani had rejected these accusations, but his group had seen its stock market value reduced by more than 150 billion dollars and the businessman had seen his personal wealth collapse by around 80 billion dollars. The tycoon and his company have since made up for much of those losses.
Born into a middle-class family in Ahmedabad, a large city in western India, Gautam Adani dropped out of school to work briefly in the diamond industry before launching his export business in 1988.
In 1995, the businessman, who was then seeking to diversify his activities, won the contract to build and operate the commercial port of Mundra, which has since become the largest in India. At the same time, he engaged in thermal power generation and coal mining at home and abroad.
