In June 2020, a renewable energy company owned by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani won what it called the largest solar development bid ever: a deal to provide 8 gigawatts of electricity to a state-owned power company .

But there was a problem. Local power companies did not want to pay the prices offered by the state-owned company, which jeopardized the deal, according to US authorities. To save the deal, Adani reportedly decided to bribe local authorities to persuade them to buy the electricity.

The allegation is at the heart of U.S. criminal and civil charges unsealed Wednesday against Adani, who is not currently in U.S. custody and is believed to be in India. His company, Adani Group, said the accusations were “baseless” and that it would seek “all possible legal remedies”.

The alleged hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes promised to local Indian officials attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as Adani’s companies raised funds from US-based investors in several transactions starting in 2021.

This account of how the alleged scheme unfolded is drawn from federal prosecutors’ 54-page criminal indictment against Adani and seven of his associates and two parallel civil complaints with the SEC, which extensively cite electronic messages between the alleged participants of the scheme.

In early 2020, the Solar Energy Corporation of India awarded Adani Green Energy and another company, Azure Power Global, contracts for a 12-gigawatt solar power project, which is expected to generate billions of dollars in revenue for both companies, according to the indictment. This is a major breakthrough for Adani Green Energy, led by Adani’s nephew Sagar Adani. Until then, the company had only earned about $50 million in its history and had yet to turn a profit, according to the SEC complaint. But the initiative quickly ran into obstacles. Local electricity distributors were reluctant to commit to purchasing new solar power, expecting prices to fall in the future, according to an April 7, 2021 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a think tank.

Sagar Adani and Azure’s then-CEO discussed delays and alluded to bribes on encrypted messaging app WhatsApp, according to the SEC.

When Azure CEO wrote on November 24, 2020 that local power companies “are motivated,” Sagar Adani reportedly replied: “Yeah… but the optical aspects are very difficult to cover. In February 2021, Sagar Adani reportedly wrote to the CEO: “Just so you know, we have doubled the incentives to push for these acceptances.”

The SEC did not name Azure’s CEO as a defendant, but Azure filings show that the CEO at the time was Ranjit Gupta.

Gupta was charged by the Justice Department with conspiracy to violate an anti-corruption law. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Azure said Thursday that it was cooperating with U.S. investigations and that those involved in the accusations left the company more than a year ago.

“A SUDDEN GOOD FORTUNE”

In August 2021, Gautam Adani had the first of several meetings with an official in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, to whom he allegedly ultimately promised $228 million in bribes in exchange for an agreement for the state to buy the electricity, according to the Department of Justice. Departmental indictment.

By December, Andhra Pradesh had agreed to buy the power, and other states with smaller contracts quickly followed. Officials in other states were also promised bribes, US authorities said.

During a December 6, 2021 meeting at a coffee shop, Azure executives allegedly discussed “rumors that the Adanis facilitated the signing” of the deals, according to the SEC.

Gautam Adani said on December 14, 2021 that the company was on track “to become the world’s largest renewable energy player by 2030.”

“Azure and Adani Green’s sudden good fortune sparked market speculation regarding contract awards,” the SEC wrote in its complaint.

LETTER FROM THE SEC

Soon after, the SEC began investigating. The agency sent a “general inquiry” letter to Azure – which was then listed on the New York Stock Exchange – on March 17, 2022, asking about its recent contracts and whether foreign officials had sought anything of value , according to the Department of Justice. charge.

According to the Justice Department, Gautam Adani told Azure representatives during a meeting at his office in Ahmedabad, India, next month that he expected to be reimbursed more than $80 million. dollars for bribes he paid to officials that ultimately benefited Azure’s contracts.

Some Azure representatives and a major investor in the company decided to repay Adani by allowing his company to take over a potentially profitable project. The representatives and investor allegedly agreed to tell Azure’s board that Adani had asked for bribes, but hid their role in the scheme, prosecutors said.

Meanwhile, Adani’s companies raised billions of dollars in loans and bonds from international banks, including from American investors. In four separate fundraising operations between 2021 and 2024, the companies sent investors documents indicating that they had not paid bribes – statements that prosecutors consider false and constitute fraud .

FBI RESEARCH

During a visit to the United States on March 17, 2023, FBI agents seized Sagar Adani’s electronic devices. The agents served him with a search warrant issued by a judge stating that the U.S. government was investigating potential violations of fraud laws and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

According to prosecutors, Gautam Adani emailed himself photographs of each page of the search warrant on March 18, 2023.

His companies nevertheless entered into a $1.36 billion syndicated loan deal on December 5, 2023 and another sale of collateralized securities in March 2024, and once again provided investors with misleading information about their anti-corruption practices , according to prosecutors.

On October 24, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn obtained a secret grand jury indictment against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, Gupta and five others allegedly involved in the scheme.

The indictment was unsealed on November 20, causing a $27 billion drop in the market value of Adani Group companies. Adani Green Energy quickly canceled a planned $600 million bond sale.