Indian billionaire Gautam Adani pays several million dollars in fines after suspicions of corruption in the United States

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani will pay several million dollars in fines in the United States. He was charged there in a vast corruption case. But he does not recognize his guilt, his group insisted this Friday.

The indictment dated November 20, 2024 in New York accused the tycoon and several of his subordinates of deliberately misleading international investors. The case concerns a multi-million dollar corruption scheme. The 63-year-old industrialist was suspected of having participated in the payment of 250 million dollars (around 215 million euros) in bribes to Indian officials to obtain solar energy contracts in India, to the detriment of investors in the United States.

Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani agreed to pay a fine of 18 million dollars (approximately 15.5 million euros). They specify doing so “without acknowledging or denying the accusations made in the civil complaint”, indicates a letter from Adani Green Energy addressed to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

A lawyer close to Donald Trump

The payment of this penalty comes as the American federal prosecutor’s office is preparing to drop the charges against Gautam Adani, the New York Times revealed on Thursday. In his letter, which specifies that the final judgment of the American court is still awaited, Gautam Adani emphasizes that “no accusation has been brought against his company which is not a party to this procedure”.

The New York Times specifies that the decision to drop the prosecution, launched in November 2024, came after Gautam Adani recruited a new team of defenders. This is headed by Robert Giuffra, one of US President Donald Trump’s lawyers.

A fortune equivalent to 70 billion euros

The Times reports that, during a meeting between the defense and the prosecution at the Department of Justice in April, the lawyer put forward a form of deal: if the charges against him were dropped, Gautam Adani would be ready to invest 10 billion dollars (around 8.5 billion euros) in the American economy and create 15,000 jobs.

At the head of a business empire stretching from coal to airports, cement and media, the chairman of the Adani group is considered close to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi. According to the Forbes index, he is today the 24th richest man in the world, at the head of a fortune estimated at 82 billion dollars (around 70 billion euros). He has always rejected the accusations of the American justice system, describing them as “unfounded”.