Who is Sagar Adani, nephew of Gautam Adani, indicted in US over alleged Rs 2,029 crore bribery scheme?

Sagar Adani, the nephew of Adani Group founder and chairman, Gautam Adani, is among the seven defendants indicted by US prosecutors in New York on Wednesday (November 20) in an alleged Rs 2,029 crore bribery case.

Adani, India's second-richest man, and six others, have been charged by the US Department of Justice with paying bribes to unidentified officials of state governments in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to buy expensive solar power, potentially earning more than $2 billion in profit over 20 years.

The Adani Group has denied the allegations, calling them baseless, and stated it would pursue “all possible legal recourse.”

Who is Sagar Adani?

Sagar Adani is the son of Rajesh Adani and the nephew of Gautam Adani, both key figures in the Adani Group. Sagar has been with the group since its early days and currently serves as an executive director at Adani Green Energy, where his father also holds a directorial position.

After earning a degree in economics from Brown University in the USA, he joined the Adani Group in 2015. Sagar is credited with significantly expanding the company’s solar and wind energy portfolio. He is responsible for overseeing the organisation’s strategic, financial, and structural development, as stated on the company's website.

As per a Bloomberg report, Sagar Adani is one of four potential successors to Gautam Adani's business, alongside his brothers Karan and Jeet Adani, and their cousin Pranav Adani.

What are the charges against Sagar Adani?

US Attorney Breon Peace has announced a five-count criminal indictment against the 62-year-old Adani, his nephew Sagar, an executive director at the conglomerate's renewable energy arm Adani Green Energy Ltd, and its former CEO Vneet S Jaain.

The indictment charged them with conspiracies to commit securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud for their roles in a multi-billion-dollar scheme to obtain funds from US investors and global financial institutions based on false and misleading statements.

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

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also charged Gautam and Sagar Adani and Azure Power executive Cabanes with "violating the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws".

(With inputs from PTI, Reuters)