U.S. Charges Indian Billionaire Adani With Fraud Over Bribery Scheme
Remember how he was going to drain the swamp?
Back in 2019, Gautam Adani, the 17th richest men in the world, wanted a piece of the American pie. He's your typical Indian billionaire. He inherited a family fortune, shoved his siblings out of the way, bribed every government official, politician and judge he could turn, and amassed an empire worth more than a billion crore in rupees, 85 bil in $US.
Adani's your typical fatcat, a real charmer. He is reported to eat twenty masala dosas in a single sitting, belches, wipes his hands on the tablecloth and spits his beetlenut juice on the floor, leaving a trail of red mucus wherever he goes. He claps his hands for the bill, curses when he sees it, and never leaves a tip.
In 2019, he wanted more. Things were on the up and up. The big fella was in power, Adani Green Energy was listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Adani had a few friends, as you do. What Adani did next is what every fatcat, princeling, oligarch and crime boss does when they want to make a splash in America.
They go to Washington. Adani hit the lobbyists, had his photo taken with representatives and senators, he schmoozed. Endless masala dosas, washed down with bottles of Johnny Walker black.
Of course, he soon found out what every fatcat finds, or at least
used to find, before Trump 2.0: flattery gets you nowhere. Adani wondered when the subject would turn to baksheesh. Here he was dining with
politicians of all people, and they never named a price. Something wasn't right.
So Adani met with the public servants, many of them Gujaratis like himself. Senior managers in the Department of Energy, engineers or researchers, all immigrants to America. At least they spoke Hindi. Now, with the whiskey flowing, loosened in his native tongue, Adani told
them.
America needed a bit of the old Indian
can-do, he told them. Why weren't Americans building anything anymore? Indian engineering could make great things happen. Their superior Indian craftsmanship and technology, along with their renowned Indian sweat, speed and faith - yes faith - could cut through obstacles and bureaucratic inertia like Hanuman leaping over the sea to find Princess Sita in Lanka.
The officials wobbled their heads from side to side in agreement. At least, that's what Adani thought they were doing. He wanted in on the solar energy market, and it could work for them both. The US government should get in on the action. There was a lot of interest in renewable energy in 2019, and Adani was offering them a solar renaissance - a network of solar energy plants through the southern sunbelt, powering the country. They could make America great!
Adani clapped his hands for another bottle of Johnny Walker in an ice bucket, pulled out his gold pen and jotted numbers down on a napkin: he wanted $2400 crore from the government, but he planned to put in double the amount himself, a 50/50 share. Uncle would be a silent partner, they understood, in the Indian style - American style too, he added, reminding them of their great president Ronald Reaganji.
This was a generational investment, Adani said. Once installed, the energy would be
free. His Bhadla Solar Park in Rajasthan was almost in phase two, he explained, but think on it. Upon completion, it would power homes and factories all over north India. His Kamuthi plant in Tamil Nadu, in 2019 the world's biggest, had brought power to people for the first time. So many homes - 1.5 lakh, he said. And this was just the beginning. Isn't it.
The officials wobbled their heads. Adani wrote more numbers down, talking quickly in Hindi. He felt like he was back in Ahmedabad. Capital, infrastructure, labour, man hours for this and that. You, of course, will be suitably compensated, Adani told them. He wrote a number on the napkin and circled it.
Adani had met with the officials separately, but each public official he met - to the man - stopped wobbling their heads. Their eyes darted nervously to the surrounding tables, then to the walls and ceiling to check for cameras.
Alas, it wasn't to be. In December 2019, covid hit, and Adani found himself back in Ahmedabad. In 2020, the Trump administration was voted out of office for botching covid. Sleepy Joe, a Dem, came to power and started an energy renaissance of his own.
In December 2021, after less than a year in office, he signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into being, a generational bill with bi-partisan support. Rather than funding foreigners to develop renewable energy infrastructure, the administration funded American start-ups, predominantly in Republican states. The bill was considered a win-win, and no one needed to be bribed to carry it out.
Adani stayed home, and took it easy. He knew the players in Delhi, and carried on, business as usual. But, rather than using Indian money to invest in America, he hit the Americans up to invest in India. Cunning, no? He sold bonds in America, and used the cash to pay his baksheesh in India. The SEC joined the dots, and in 2024, the
the hammer came downBribery, wire fraud, misleading investors, you name it. Gautam Adani, one of the richest fatcats in the world, was banged to rights. He was charged in November 2024, and faced indictment to the US.
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