US to Drop Graft Charges Against Indian Magnate Gautam Adani

new York: U.S. prosecutors are preparing to drop charges against billionaire Indian industrialist Gautam Adani, who is accused of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and hiding the payments, the New York Times reported Thursday.

The chairman of the Adani Group, which owns a business empire spanning coal, airports, cement and media, has been rocked by allegations of corporate fraud and stock crashes in recent years.

Modi, a close aide of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a native of the state of Gujarat, allegedly agreed to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials for lucrative solar power supply contracts in November 2024.

The move to drop the charges under US President Joe Biden’s administration came after Adani hired new lawyers led by Robert Giuffra, one of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, the Times said.

The Times reported that at a meeting between the defense and prosecution at the Justice Department in April, Giuffra presented slides that included one saying Mr. Adani would be willing to invest $10 billion in the American economy and create 15,000 jobs if prosecutors dropped the charges.

Prosecutors have previously detailed how one of Adani’s alleged accomplices meticulously tracked bribes offered to officials using his phone.

Adani was born into a middle-class family in Ahmedabad in the state of Gujarat, but left school at 16 and moved to the financial capital Mumbai to find work in the city’s lucrative jewelery trade.

After working briefly in his brother’s plastics business, he turned to export trading in 1988, establishing the flagship family holding company that bears his name.

His big break came seven years later with a contract to build and operate a commercial shipping port in Gujarat.

The Ministry of Justice did not respond to AFP’s call for comment.