US Justice Department drops criminal fraud case against Indian billionaire Adani

The US Justice Department announced Monday that it will drop its criminal fraud case against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani as part of the Trump administration’s broader mission to resolve other legal and business matters with him, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The move also comes after revelations that Adani had planned to invest $10 billion in US projects before his indictment in 2024.

“The Department of Justice has reviewed this case and has decided, in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants,” prosecutors wrote in their motion to permanently dismiss the charges.

As part of the agreement, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said that Adani Enterprises, part of the Adani Group, will pay $275 million to settle an investigation into alleged violations of Iran sanctions.

In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced last week that it had reached an agreement with Adani and his nephew, Sagar Adani, to settle related civil charges for a total of $18 million.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Adanis did not admit wrongdoing as part of either settlement. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission settlements and dismissal of the criminal charges must be approved by a judge.

Gautam Adani is the founder and chairman of the Adani Group, which does business with the US across sectors from energy to infrastructure and logistics.

The resolution of the Adani case is part of the Trump administration's plan “to abandon cases brought by the prior administration as its enforcement priorities shift,” according to the Journal, which reported that since Trump took office, “the Justice Department has dropped foreign bribery prosecutions.” The SEC has also ended lawsuits against crypto firms Binance and Coinbase.

The November 2024 indictment of Adani happened after Trump’s election to his second term in the White House, but before he took office in January 2025. Adani and seven other executives were charged with several counts, including securities fraud. Some of the defendants, excluding the Adanis, were charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The Justice Department alleged that the defendants agreed to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials in order to win lucrative solar energy contracts from the Indian government.

The Adani Group called the allegations “baseless” at the time, and the defendants, who do not live in the US, never appeared in court.

The Justice Department is also seeking to dismiss the case against all defendants named in the indictment.

Before the Justice Department decided to drop the case, the Adani legal team held several meetings with US regulators and Trump administration officials, according to the Journal report.

In a meeting with officials in Washington last month, Adani's attorney, Robert Giuffra, reportedly told the Justice Department that the pending case was preventing Adani from investing $10 billion in the US.

Shortly after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Adani posted a congratulatory message to the president on X and said that “as the partnership between India and the United States deepens,” his company would invest $10 billion in US projects and create 15,000 jobs.

According to the Journal, prosecutors announced the indictment a week after that social media post, and Adani's investment in the US never occurred.