NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. prosecutors asked a judge Monday to dismiss criminal fraud and conspiracy charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, who had been accused of duping Wall Street investors who poured billions of dollars into a massive solar project in India.
Adani, one of the world's richest people, was accused in 2024 of paying massive bribes to ensure the project's success. He was indicted in federal court in Brooklyn on charges of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud charges in connection with a lucrative arrangement for Adani Green Energy Ltd. and another firm to sell 12 gigawatts of solar power to the Indian government to light millions of homes and businesses.
The Adani Group denied the allegations at the time, calling them baseless.
“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 a court filing.
The filing bore the names of Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter and Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis must still approve the request.
Lawyers for Adani and his co-defendants consented to the request, prosecutors said.
Adani's lawyer, Robert Giuffra, declined to comment. Lawyers Timothy Sini and Sean Hecker, who represent Adani’s nephew and co-defendant Sagar Adani, also declined comment.
Adani was never arrested in the case or brought to the U.S. to face trial and some in India long expected the case would be shelved after President Donald Trump last year suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. law banning business bribes overseas.
The move to drop the charges comes after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it was settling a related lawsuit against Adani.
Adani built his fortune in the coal business in the 1990s and, over time, the Adani Group embraced a diverse portfolio, investing in industries like renewable energy, defense and agriculture.
The company amassed a clean energy portfolio that included one of the world’s largest solar power plants, and had set a goal of becoming the country’s biggest player in the space by 2030. Adani had close ties with India’s government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But the company also had its critics.
Short-seller Hindenburg Research, a U.S.-based financial research firm, has accused Adani and his company of “brazen stock manipulation” and “accounting fraud.” The Adani Group labeled the claims “a malicious combination of selective misinformation and stale, baseless and discredited allegations.”
When they charged Adani in 2024, U.S. prosecutors in New York said he and others played two sides of the solar deal, enticing investors with a rosy portrayal that the project was above board while offering $265 million in bribes to Indian government officials to secure lucrative contracts.
After the case was announced, Kenya’s president canceled multimillion-dollar airport expansion and energy deals with Adani. Adani Green Energy withdrew its wind energy projects from Sri Lanka after the country sought to renegotiate prices, while a French oil giant also paused new investments.
Analysts say a key factor in Adani’s meteoric rise over the years has been his knack for aligning his group’s priorities with those of the Modi government. His critics accuse him of crony capitalism and of gaining preferential treatment from the government, including in winning contracts, which the group has denied.
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Adani’s first name. It is Gautam, not Gautaum.
FILE - Gautam Adani, Indian billionaire and chairman of Adani Group, presides over the 51st Gems and Jewelry awards function in Jaipur, India, on Nov. 30, 2024. (AP Photo, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Commuters in New York City’s suburbs navigated a gauntlet of car, bus and subway routes to get to work Monday as a strike on the Long Island Rail Road that shut down the nation’s busiest commuter rail system entered its third day.
Unions representing rail workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, which runs the railroad, negotiated for much of Sunday, wrapping their talks around 1 a.m. Monday.
But they failed to reach an agreement despite pressure from the National Mediation Board and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. The two sides returned to the bargaining table Monday.
Katie Dolgow, who teaches first graders in Manhattan, said it had already taken her an hour just to travel from Long Island to Queens as more commuters turned to the region's already notoriously gridlocked roads. But her big concern was going home.
“I have to get my son at daycare by 5:30. It's going to take me longer getting home. I'm a teacher, I'm going to have to leave work at 1:30,” she said.
Unionized workers were out early picketing in front of major LIRR hubs, chanting slogans and holding up signs that read: “No contract. No work,” and “Equal work. Equal pay.”
“We're just asking for a reasonable cost of living adjustment on our wages,” Byron Lee, a locomotive engineer, said outside Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. “People think that we don't deserve it.”
The LIRR serves hundreds of thousands of commuters who live along a 118-mile-long (190-kilometer-long) land mass that includes Brooklyn and Queens in New York City and the Hamptons, a summertime playground for the rich and famous. Most of its riders live outside New York City in two Long Island counties populated by nearly three million people.
The strike started at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after five unions representing about half the rail system's workforce walked off the job for the first time since a two-day strike in 1994.
The unions, which represent locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and others, have said more substantial raises are warranted to help workers keep up with inflation and rising living costs. The MTA has said the unions’ initial demands to raise salaries would result in large fare increases and be disproportionate to other unionized workers’ pay.
“With the rate of inflation nationally, and especially in this New York area, everybody feels it,” said James Louis, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, on Monday. “We’re just trying to keep their heads above water. We’re not asking for anything outrageous.”
The unions and the MTA have been negotiating a new contract since 2023, but talks have stalled over salaries and healthcare.
The Trump administration got involved in September after the unions asked for the appointment of a panel of experts. The move temporarily averted a strike, but months still passed without a deal.
Hochul said Sunday that workers would lose every dollar they would gain with a new contract by remaining on strike.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber also urged a fast resolution, saying LIRR service could resume as soon as Tuesday if a deal is reached Monday.
“We are headed in a positive direction, but we have to get it finished,” Lieber told WABC-TV, even as union officials, suggested talks Monday were progressing slowly.
Roughly 250,000 riders normally use the train system each weekday. Officials had pleaded with them to work from home rather than commute into the city.
Ridership has been lighter than expected on the free but limited shuttle buses the MTA provided from a handful of locations on Long Island to New York City subway stations.
During the morning commute, more than 2,000 people took advantage of the service, the agency said. It had prepared for about 13,000 riders.
The buses are also being offered for the evening rush hour and are geared toward essential workers and those who can't telecommute.
Molloy University and Stony Brook University on Long Island are both set to hold commencements Monday.
Officials at Stony Brook urged graduates and guests to carpool where possible as the state university's ceremony was slated to start during the afternoon rush hour.
The first impacts of the walkout were felt over the weekend as baseball fans had to find other ways to get to Citi Field in Queens to see the New York Mets take on their crosstown rivals the New York Yankees.
If the strike stretches into Tuesday, basketball fans looking to catch the New York Knicks continue their playoff run could also run into problems. Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks play their home games, is located directly above the railroad’s Penn Station hub in Manhattan.
Hochul stopped by MTA headquarters in lower Manhattan on Monday morning as negotiations were underway, according to her office. The governor was briefed on the status of talks as well as the morning commute.
“She is pleased that the unions accepted her invitation to return to the table and encourages both parties to continue negotiating in good faith,” said Sean Butler, a Hochul spokesperson.
The Democrat, who is up for reelection this year, has blamed President Donald Trump’s administration for cutting mediation short in September and pushing the unions toward a strike.
But the Republican president, on his Truth Social platform, said he had nothing to do with it and blamed Hochul instead.
McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Ted Shaffrey and Joseph Frederick in New York contributed.
Signs for free Long Island Rail Road shuttle buses hang at the Howard Beach–JFK Airport station as Long Island Rail Road workers enter the third day of their strike, Monday, May 18, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Long Island Rail Road workers walk on the picket line outside of Penn Station on the third day of their strike, Monday, May 18, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
A pedestrian walks along an empty track at Mineola train station as Long Island Rail Road workers strike, Monday, May 18, 2026, in Mineola, N.Y. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Tracks are empty at Mineola train station as Long Island Rail Road workers enter the third day of their strike, Monday, May 18, 2026, in Mineola, N.Y. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
People exit and board buses at the Mineola train station as Long Island Rail Road workers enter the third day of their strike, Monday, May 18, 2026, in Mineola, N.Y. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Commuters sit on a shuttle bus as Long Island Rail Road workers strike, Monday, May 18, 2026, in Mineola, N.Y. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Visitors look out at the trains at the West Side Yard from the Vessel on the first day of a Long Island Rail Road workers' strike, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
Tracks are empty at Mineola train station as Long Island Rail Road workers enter the third day of their strike, Monday, May 18, 2026, in Mineola, N.Y. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)
