An American judge dismisses a complaint against Indian billionaire Adani close to Narendra Modi
An American judge dismissed a complaint against Indian tycoon Gautam Adani on Monday, August 10, after the American government decided to withdraw the charges of fraud and corruption against him. The billionaire has been suspected since 2024 of having participated in the payment of more than 250 million dollars (around 216 million euros) in bribes to Indian officials to obtain contracts in solar energy in India, to the detriment of investors in the United States.
The American federal prosecutor’s office requested in May that the charges against him be dropped and this request was approved on Monday by a federal judge in Brooklyn, Nicholas Garaufis.
At the head of a business empire stretching from coal to airports, including cement and the media, Gautam Adani is considered close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Aged 64, he has a personal fortune estimated at 84.6 billion dollars (73.3 billion euros), according to the ranking Forbes.
Defended by a Donald Trump lawyer
Daily life The New York Times had reported that the decision to drop the charges was made after Gautam Adani recruited a new team of defense attorneys led by Robert Giuffra, one of President Donald Trump’s lawyers. According to the newspaper, during a meeting between the defense and the prosecution at the Ministry of Justice in April, the lawyer notably argued that if the complaint against him was dropped, Gautam Adani would be ready to invest $10 billion in the American economy.
Judge Garaufis had previously asked whether this promise had been a factor in the prosecution’s decision, before concluding that it had not. However, he virulently criticized the way in which a senior Justice Department official, Trent McCotter, appointed by President Trump, proceeded to arrive at this decision.
“The fact that McCotter arrived at this decision largely in collaboration with defense counsel, and apparently without any input from FBI and SEC agents (the stock market regulatory authority) who investigated the alleged misconduct, nor (prosecutors) who initiated the proceedings, seems quite unusual”wrote Judge Garaufis.
