Adani Fraud Case Dropped After $10bn US Investment Pledge

The Trump administration has moved to drop criminal fraud charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, ending — pending a judge’s approval — a major corruption case that had accused one of Asia’s richest men of bribery and misleading US investors.

The United States Department of Justice said it would no longer pursue the charges, which centred on allegations that Adani and others bribed Indian officials to secure solar energy contracts and then concealed the scheme while raising money from US and international investors.

“The Department of Justice has reviewed this case and has decided, in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants,” the DOJ said in a brief letter to Judge Nicholas Garaufis at the US District Court in the Eastern District of New York.

The request still needs court approval.

The decision comes after Adani pledged to invest $10bn in the United States. His company has long denied the allegations.

The case was originally brought under the administration of former President Joe Biden. Prosecutors had alleged that Adani Green Energy bribed Indian officials to win contracts connected to what was described as India’s largest solar power project, while presenting misleading information about the company’s anti-corruption practices to investors.

At the time, Breon Peace, then the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, framed the case as a large-scale corruption and investor deception scheme.

“The defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars and Gautam S Adani, Sagar R Adani and Vneet S Jaain lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from US and international investors,” Peace said.

Prosecutors said Adani and his alleged co-conspirators raised more than $3bn from investors during the process.

The decision to drop the case also follows changes to Adani’s legal team. According to reporting from The New York Times, Adani recently added Robert J Giuffra Jr, one of Donald Trump’s personal attorneys, to his defence team.

Giuffra said Adani would pledge a $10bn investment in the US, which the newspaper reported could create 15,000 jobs. He also reiterated that Adani denied the allegations.

The move places the case at the intersection of law, business and politics. On paper, the Justice Department is exercising prosecutorial discretion. In practice, the timing will draw attention because the dismissal follows a major investment pledge from a billionaire whose legal team includes a lawyer closely tied to the president.