ALBANESE CALLED UPON TO INVESTIGATE ADANI’S DEALINGS IN AUSTRALIA FOLLOWING USA INDICTMENT

Infamous billionaire, Gautam Adani, was yesterday indicted by prosecutors from the Department of Justice in the USA on charges alleging bribery and deception.

The indictment says that Adani and associates were charged 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 U.S. investors and global financial institutions on the basis of false and misleading statements’.

Geoff Law, the coordinator of AdaniWatch for the Bob Brown Foundation, called on Australian PM Anthony Albanese to bring about an investigation by Australian authorities into allegations concerning the Adani Group’s business dealings in Australia. These include the controversial Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, the subject of intense protests between 2016 and 2019, and the North Queensland Export Terminal at Abbot Point.

Mr Law said the Adani Group’s ‘opaque web of companies and trusts’, revealed by the ABC in 2017 should be investigated. This complex web includes entities in tax-haven countries such as the British Virgin Islands, which experts say might enable Adani companies in Australia to minimise the tax they pay. The role of Gautam Adani’s older brother, Vinod Adani, in entities with financial dealings with the Adani Group’s Australian businesses should also be probed. Entities allegedly controlled by Vinod Adani have been central to the explosive Hindenburg Research report of January 2023 and other reports in the international finance media.

‘PM Albanese should ensure that the age of impunity for oligarchs that prevails in other countries should not apply in Australia,’ Mr Law said.