if there was corruption of billions of rupees,
this money came from your pockets."
"Adani Group and its partners"
"planned to bribe government officials."
"...offered a bribe of ₹17.50 billion."
"But there was a problem."
"It was written exactly"
"which officer of a state or a region was offered a bribe,"
"the amount of bribe offered"
"It even mentioned the per megawatt rate of the bribes."
"US prosecutors are calling Sagar Adani's notes as 'Bribe Notes."
"It wasn't a new allegation or report."
This time, it was an arrest warrant."
Hello, friends,
It was a big day for businessman mogul Gautam Adani From morning to evening, he kept receiving good news.His company had sold bonds to raise $600 million.Before this, however, he had to face one accusation after another.Alleged coal scam,
alleged land scam,and the Hindenburg report.But he somehow managed to evade all these.
According to a source close to him,he played a game of cards with his wife in the evening to relax,and then went to sleep.Then, around 3 AM, he got a news.The biggest and the most shocking news of the year for him."An arrest warrant has been issued against Gautam Adani.""The Adani Energy Group has been charged in the United States,over an alleged multi-billion dollar bribery scam.1:25
This time, it wasn't a new accusation or new report.This time, it was an arrest warrant.
This time, in America,in a criminal investigation,
the court accused him of corruption and bribery involving more than ₹20 billion.He has been indicted in New York.An indictment in the US is equivalent to framing a chargesheet in India.You can see the 'chargesheet' against Adani.What are the accusations here?What are the new allegations Adani has to battle now?And how is it harming you?How does it affect an average Indian?Let's understand this in depth in this blog!The list of allegations against Adani is so long,that there's hardly anyone who has memorised the entire list.Look at this news from 10 years ago.In Modi's Gujarat, Adani's companies got land at the cheapest prices.While companies like the Tata Group paid more than ₹1,000 per square meter,Adani got it at merely ₹32 per square meter.Then, look at this news from 2015.CAG report said that due to wrongful classification of forest land,Adani's company benefitted by about ₹580 million.Then there's this news from 2021,the Finance Ministry and Niti Aayog had raised red flags before 6 airports were sold to Adani.Additionally, there are allegations of
tax evasion by creating numerous shell companies.And a major coal scam.There's also an allegation related to the port project in Sri Lanka.All these allegations had been made way before the Hindenburg report.What are these allegations exactly?How do they translate to losses to the tune of billions of rupees?I have talked about it in this blog.Let's not repeat that.
So let's come straight to this new case in America,this began in June 2020.In June 2020, Gautam Adani's company Adani Green Energy and its partner company Azure Power Global got the biggest solar development contract ever.Solar Energy Corporation of India is a PSU, a government company,run by the Ministry of Renewable Energy of our government.It gave this contract to Adani Green Energy to supply 8 gigawatts of electricity and to Azure Power Global to supply 4 gigawatts of electricity.Due to this contract, both companies were expected to earn billions of dollars in the coming years.This was a big deal for Adani Green Energy because the total revenue of this company at that point,was only around $50 million.Till then, they hadn't seen any profits.This company was led by Gautam Adani's nephew, Sagar Adani.But here came a problem.The problem was that in the agreement the energy prices were very high.
So, no one was willing to buy power from them. The thing is, Solar Energy Corporation of India was an intermediary.It bought electricity from Adani and sold it to different states.State-owned power companies across India believed that the solar energy prices would go down in the future
so they didn't want to commit to paying higher prices to Adani for future transactions.But if there's no one to buy,the contract would have to be cancelled.Friends, the things According to this indictment,around 2020, Adani Group and its partners planned to bribe government officials.It was simple plan.Bribe the ministers in charge or their political parties and in return, get them to sign this contract of buying electricity from Adani.So that they buy power from Adani at higher prices.There are three major allegations in this indictment.
First, the alleged bribery.Second, allegedly destroying evidence to obstruct the investigation.And third, allegedly lying to the investors and presenting misleading facts effectively committing fraud against them.It mentions that Sagar Adani and Azure's CEO Ranjit Gupta discussed the delays in this project and talked about it on WhatsApp.Some exact WhatsApp messages have been mentioned here.Like, on 24th November 2020,Azure's CEO Ranjit Gupta said that local power companies "are being motivated."To this, Sagar Adani replied,"Yup... but the optics are very difficult to cover."
After this, on 25th February 2021 regarding the J&K and Chhattisgarh deals,Sagar Adani informed Ranjit Gupta that they had to double the incentives to get the deals accepted.The indictment mentions that in July 2021 in exchange for buying 500 megawatts of power,Sagar Adani offered bribes to government officials in Odisha,a bribe of hundreds of thousands of dollars.After this, in August 2021,Gautam Adani met an official of the Andhra Pradesh government.In the meeting, he offered a bribe of ₹17.50 billion.
In exchange, the official was told to convince
the Andhra Pradesh government to to buy power from Adani.After this, it's mentioned that by December 2021,the Andhra Pradesh government agreed to this contract.The other states too agreed to buy power in small quantities.These states included Odisha, J&K, Tamil Nadu, and Chhattisgarh.Odisha had BJD government back then.BJP was in power in Jammu & Kashmir,Tamil Nadu had DMK government,and Congress in Chhattisgarh.The indictment states that in total, bribes were paid to the tune of ₹20.39 billion.Another question here is,were the BJP-ruled states willing to buy electricity from Adani without taking any bribes?Was a simple phone call enough to convince them?On 14th December 2021,Gautam Adani claimed that Adani Green Energy will be one of the biggest renewable energy companies in the world by 2030."We're also aiming to reach 45 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030."Adani Green and Azure's futures were looking great all of a sudden.Leading to various speculations about these contracts in the market.It was only after this that the US Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating it.In short, it's known as SEC.
On 17th March 2022,SEC sent a General Inquiry Letter to Azure,in it, they asked questions about the recent contracts as well as whether foreign officials had asked for anything in exchange for these contracts.Then, the next month,as is mentioned in point #55 of the indictment,Gautam Adani and Azure officials have a meeting,in which they were supposed to discuss their parts in the 'Bribery Scheme.'Azure was to pay its share amounting to ₹6.38 billion.
Specifically, to point #64 of this indictment. Azure, instead of paying their share of the bribes decided to give Adani a 2.3 gigawatts contract that was a part of this project.In internal communications between Azure officials,they used codenames while discussing this. Gautam Adani was referred to as SAG, Mr A, Numero Uno or The Big Man.And Vineet Jaain was known as V, Snake or Numero Uno Minus One.Meanwhile, Adani's companies took billions of dollars as loans from international banks and US investors.
Between 2021 and 2024,in 4 different fundraising transactions Adani companies issued investor documents in these, they mentioned that they did not bribe anyone.Investigation continued in America.Then on 17th March, 2023,Sagar Adani went to America,and FBI agents seized his electronic devices.Sagar Adani was given a copy of the search warrant and a grand jury subpoena.You can think of a subpoena as a summon to present yourself before the courts.It mentioned that the US government was investigating alleged violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
18th March, 2023according to US prosecutors,Gautam Adani emailed himself photographs of every page of this supeona and search warrant.It was written exactly which officer of a state or a region was offered a bribe,the amount of bribe offered and in return, how much electricity will they buy.It even mentioned the per megawatt rate of the bribes.It mentions how Sagar Adani kept notes of the bribes paid.Apart from this, it also included information on how the bribe would be distributed among the government officials of every state.These notes by Sagar Adani have been named as 'Bribe Notes' by US prosecutors.Even after this, on 5th December 2023,Adani's companies took loans of $1.36 billion and lied to investors about their anti-bribery practices.
Look at point #114between 2021 and 2024,the annual reports of Adani Green included their anti-bribery practices.This was a completely false and misleading.This is an article from Bloomberg, dated 15th March, 2024,states that the US was investigating Adani for bribery.In response, the Adani Group pretended to not know of any investigation against their chairperson Gautam Adani.Whereas the truth is that they had received the Grand Jury Subpoena about a year ago.On 24th October, 2024,the federal prosecutors of Brooklyn set up a secret grand jury against Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani This became public knowledge about a month later,on 20th November, 2024.The entire world found out about this.
"Indian billionaire Gautam Adani and 7 other senior executives are indicted by the Justice Department."
"Accused of large-scale bribery to secure energy projects."In total, 8 people have been charged including Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, and Vineet Jaain.
On 31st October, their arrest warrants were unsealed by Judge Robert Levy.Arrest warrants have been issued against Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani.The next step would be for the US government to send these arrest warrants to the Ministry of Home Affairs India.But this hasn't happened yet.
In response, on 21st November, there was a media release by the Adani Group claiming that the allegations against them are baseless.They promise to take all legal steps to prove these allegations wrong.Now it will be interesting to see how the state governments mentioned in the allegations react to this.The biggest deal was allegedly with the Andhra Pradesh government,whose Chief Minister was Jagan Mohan Reddy back then.To these allegations, he says that meeting Adani wasn't out of the ordinary for him.And the allegations of bribery are mere hearsay.He calls the person connecting these dots a fool.In Odisha, Biju Janata Dal was in power back then,and they have called these allegations baseless and incorrect.While in Chhattisgarh, Congress was in power with Bhupesh Bagel as both the Chief Minister and the Power Minister.He claims that wasn't during Congress' tenure.
Coincidently, a few days ago Delhi's former CM Arvind Kejriwal made this statement.He said that when he was Delhi's CM, he too was pressurised to buy power from Adani."Today in this House, I want to make full disclosure,that when I was the CM,I was pressured to hand over Delhi's energy corporations to Adani.""Had I handed over Delhi's power companies to Adani,I want to inform the people of Delhi,you couldn't even have affored electricity."
In Tamil Nadu, DMK was in power andtheir Electricity Minister, Senthil Balaji said that after coming to power in 2021,and that their government did not sign any contracts with Adani Group.These states claim that they haven't entered into any direct agreements with Adani,rather, their agreements are with the Central Government's PSU,Solar Energy Corporation of India.This doesn't seem like a lie.Because as you've seen in the chargesheet,this PSU was acting as the intermediary in these deals.So the question is what does this PSU have to say?They say that in this case, they haven't been accused of taking any bribes.The state governments have been accused and they should take action.
In this matter, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said that Adani should be arrested for this,but it won't happen because the Prime Minister of India supports Adani.In response, BJP said that the accusations have been made against the opposition states too.They also said that opposition governments have also been accused of taking bribes,so they should be the ones at fault.
Here, I'd like to say that instead of pointing fingers at each other, why doesn't the government set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate? With some members from the government and some from the opposition. But the public needs to know about what happened there exactly. Because, friends the thing is,if Adani has really paid bribes to sell power at higher prices, then every person in these states would have had to bear the brunt.All of you living in these states must have paid a higher price for electricity. This means that if there was corruption of billions of rupees, this money came from your pockets. I would like to show you an interesting comparison. Which are the states where people pay the highest price for electricity.Although this article is from 2020,from before this matter began,but it's interesting to note.Maharashtra was at #1.People in Maharashtra paid the most for electricity.A tariff of ₹9.76 rupees per unit.Madhya Pradesh was at #2,Mumbai's Adani Electricity was the third most expensive in the country.Madhya Pradesh's Rural Consumers were at #4,followed by West Bengal, Kolkata, Mumbai,Bihar, and Tripura.This was from 4 years ago.What are the rates you're paying for electricity in your states now?Comments below so that everyone can make a fair comparison and we can know in which state people are paying the highest electricity tariffs.One more question about this US case is that the corruption was in India,bribes were given in India,Adani is an Indian,these are Indian state governments,so how can the US government investigate this?Friends, the simple reason for this is that Adani's funding came from foreign investors for its major infrastructure projects.When you take funds from foreign investors,you need to play by their rules.
Adani's investors and their partners were dealing in the New York Stock Exchange.And so they fall under US's legal jurisdiction.But friends, the truth remains, they have been accused of such a big scam.The authority that should have been at the forefront of this investigation,should have been our Indian government.But unfortunately, they haven't even reacted to this news.The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) asked the stock exchanges if Adani Green failed to properly disclose the investigation into the bribery allegations by the US Justice Department.But apart from this, there have been no Indian investigations into the bribery allegations.
Obviously, the question arises here if the government doesn't investigate this.Is the government also involved in this alleged corruption scam?There were signs of this last time too.Last time, when Hindenburg accused Adani of the biggest fraud in corporate history,after that, several PILs were filed in the Supreme Court.
In March 2023, the Supreme Court set up a 6-member expert committee they were tasked with finding out whether there were any regulatory failures by SEBI relating to Adani. The Supreme Court gave this committee 2 months.2 months later they were supposed to handover their report in a sealed cover.Apart from this, the Supreme Court directed SEBI to investigate whether the Adani group manipulated their shareholding or stock prices or not.SEBI was given two months for this.On 19th May, the expert committee gave its report on SEBI.
It stated that SEBI's functioning was adequate but despite its 'best efforts,'they couldn't find anything related to the overseas entities because it couldn't determine who were the ultimate owners of the foreign portfolio investors.The accusations made by Hindenburg against Adani were about its foreign portfolio investors and shell companies.When the two months given to SEBI were over, they asked for more time.And that 2 months weren't enough to investigate this."SEBI seeks 15 more days from the Supreme Court,to submit its report on the Adani-Hindenburg matter.The market regulator said the probe is now complete."Months pass by and the case continues.SEBI kept getting extensions from the Supreme Court again and again."The Supreme Court has directed SEBI to conclude the pending probes within 3 months."
Finally, on 25th November 2024,that is, a year and 9 months later,there was news that SEBI has finished its investigation and will soon publish its final report.the Hindu Business Line.Related to the minimum shareholding of Adani Group of companies,in its investigation, out of 6 Adani listed companies,in 4 of them, SEBI has found Adani to have violated the public shareholding norms.But no action has been taken in this matter yet.
On 10th August, 2024Hindenburg made another exposé.They tweeted "Something big soon India"they were planning something big for India and a few hours after this tweet,they published their report against SEBI's Chief Madhavi Buch in Adani row.Madhabi Puri Buch is SEBI's Chairperson.This report alleges that SEBI hasn't taken any action against Adani because SEBI's Chairperson Madhabi Buch has funds invested in offshore funds.And these offshore funds were used by Gautam Adani's brother Vinod Adani to manipulate the share prices of Adani Group.Something' isn't wrong here.It's entirely wrong.In 2023, the Hinderburg report mentioned that Adani Group's promoters were creating offshore companies abroad to hold more than 75% of the shares,which is illegal according to Indian laws.
According to Hindenburg, these offshore companies were run by Gautam Adani's brother Vinod Adani.One of these offshore companies was Global Dynamic Opportunities Fund, GDOF.Registered in tax haven Bermuda.A company related to Vinod Adani had invested in this,after which, GDOF invested in IPE-Plus Fund 1.IPE-Plus Fund 1 is a company registered in Mauritius,another tax haven country.And this money was invested in IPE-Plus Fund 1,was routed back into India's share market.The Chief Investment Officer of IPE-Plus Fund 1 was Anil Ahuja.He had been a director at Adani Enterprises for 9 years,Before that, he was a director at Adani Power.IPE-Plus Fund 1 is the company in which Madhabi Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch had invested their funds.They opened an account with the fund on 5th June, 2015.After that, when Madhabi Buch was made SEBI's full-time member in April 2017,only one and a half months before that,her husband wrote a letter to the fund's administrator.
In this letter, he wrote that moving forward, he would manage these accounts alone,and only he should be considered its operator. This account statement sent by GDOF to Madhabi Buch's email was shared by Hindenburg.It mentions that in 2018,the total value of their investment in the fund was around $872,000.Her husband had informed GDOF That he would operate the account alone,despite this, on 25th February, 2018,Madhabi Buch used her personal email to state that her husband wanted to withdraw the money they had invested in the fund.Hindenburg pointed out that there are thousands of mutual funds in India.Madhabi Buch could have invested her money in any mutual fund.But despite this, coincidently,she invested her money in an offshore account linked to Adani.
An offshore fund which wasn't big but was highly risky.Which was linked to numerous scandals.The expert committee set up by the Supreme Court to investigate this matter stated that SEBI was trying to find out who were the investors of the offshore entities related to Adani but it was reportedly unsuccessful at doing so.Hindenburg showed proofs that SEBI Chief herself was one of the investors of these offshore entities,so had she really wanted to find the investors,she could have looked into a mirror.Hindenburg claimed that this is why SEBI did not investigate the claims against Adani. Because had there been a fair investigation,then SEBI's chairperson herself would have been implicated in this.Now you might be wondering about Madhabi Buch's response to these allegations.She did not deny these investments.She said that she had invested in the fund in 2015,when she wasn't associated with SEBI.
Further, she claimed that she invested in this fund,because the Chief Investment Officer Anil Ahuja was Dhaval Buch's childhood friend.SEBI also stated that they have sufficient internal mechanisms to deal with the conflict of interest.And that Madhabi Buch has periodically disclosed her holdings,and has distanced herself from some matters.This begs the simple question,on one hand, SEBI claims that it cannot find the investors of Adani's offshore entities and on the other hand, Madhabi Buch is clearly saying that she had invested in the fund.So did SEBI know about Madhabi Buch's investment in this fund?
After I found out about this matter, I did doubt that something is definitely wrong here.I am surprised at those people who blindly stand by and start defending Adani.Their baseless reasoning includes that Adani has created jobs,that because he's an Indian businessman we should defend him.And that whoever says anything against Adani must be an anti-national.What kind of nonsensical arguments are these Think about it, if you're robbed.And you doubt your neighbour,so you start gathering evidence.After working hard, you collect some evidence and go straight to the police to report that you suspect your neighbour of robbing you,so you give the evidence to the police and ask them to investigate this matter.
Now imagine, if the police say that they will not investigate.Because your neighbour is an Indian.So you shouldn't doubt him as he can't possibly be the thief.You try to present your evidence and ask them to investigate.But the police don't listen to you.There would be no investigation into this,but then they turn on you.How dare you think of him as a criminal?They accuse you of being linked to George Soros.And call you anti-national.I mean, how stupid does one need to be to use this logic?
Despite all the evidence,if someone says that there shouldn't be any investigation into Adani,any sensible person would reply that this corruption, if true, is worth billions of rupees.Our country and fellow citizens are suffering because of this.Regardless of what happens in America,the Indian government should investigate this independently.And a Joint Parliamentary Committee should be set up for the investigation.Because so many people have a conflict of interest.Opposition states and even SEBI Chief are involved.It has become difficult to trust any organisation to conduct a fair investigation.It can take several months for this American case to conclude.The case might be affected by American domestic politics too.US attorney Breon Peace is prosecuting Adani.As soon as Donald Trump becomes the new president in January,he will be replaced by Trump's nominee.Adani knows this too.Coincidently, when Donald Trump won the elections,Gautam Adani congratulated and praised Trump.Apart from this, Adani has committed to invest $10 billion and create 10,000 jobs in the US.Look at what Bloomberg published.Trump's family members have visited Adani's home in Ahmedabad.Regardless of what happens in America,other countries have started taking action.
After Adani's indictment,the Kenyan government has cancelled Adani's contract of constructing power lines and running Kenya's main airport.They said that their decision was based on information provided by investigative agencies and partner nations.Sri Lanka's new government has also pointed out the rates at which they are supposed to buy power from Adani in the contracts,are problematic.And that they will be reviewed.Bangladesh too has also decided to hire a reputed legal and investigative firm to help review Adani's power generation projects.Norway's wealth fund had blacklisted Adani Ports.
The reason was stated to be
"unacceptable risks that the company is tied to human rights violations in war and conflict zones."It's obvious to see that a fair investigation is needed here.I hope this was an informative blog for you!Thank you very much!
