United States-based short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged on Thursday that authorities in Switzerland have frozen funds of over $310 million, or more than Rs 2,600 crore, as part of a money-laundering investigation linked to the Adani Group.
The Adani Group, however, termed the allegations as baseless and claimed that it was not involved in any Swiss court proceedings.
Hindenburg Research cited recently-released records from a Swiss criminal court to claim that the investigation has been going on since 2021, about two years before the United States-based firm released its first allegations against the conglomerate led by industrialist Gautam Adani.
Switzerland-based news website Gotham City, in a report about the court proceedings, said that “over $310 million belonging to an alleged frontman of billionaire Gautam Adani have been sequestered in five Swiss banks”.
Hindenburg Research claimed that prosecutors in the case revealed details of how the alleged Adani frontman invested in opaque funds in the British Virgin Islands, Mauritius and Bermuda that “almost exclusively owned Adani stocks”.
The Adani Group, however, called the allegations “‘preposterous, irrational, and absurd”.
“The Adani Group has no involvement in any Swiss court proceedings, nor have any of our company accounts been subject to sequestration by any authority,” the conglomerate said. It added that the Swiss court did not mention any Adani Group companies, nor did the conglomerate receive any requests for clarification or information from any such authority.
The Adani Group claimed that its overseas holding structure was “transparent, fully disclosed, and compliant with all relevant laws”.
It added: “We have no hesitation in stating that this is yet another orchestrated and egregious attempt by the same cohorts acting in unison to inflict irreversible damage on our group’s reputation and market value.”
In January 2023, Hindenburg Research released a report in which it accused the Adani Group of accounting fraud, money laundering and stock price manipulation.
The Adani Group rejected the allegations but the American firm’s report hurt the stock prices of its listed companies and wiped out more than $100 billion of investors’ money.
The Supreme Court had ordered the Securities and Exchange Board of India to inquire into the matter in March 2023.
In July, Hindenburg Research said it had received a show-cause notice from the Securities and Exchange Board of India outlining alleged violations in its short-selling of Adani Group stocks.
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