India: The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has obtained documents which allegedly show how two people with close ties to the owners of Adani Group invested significantly in the group. Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli and Chang Chung-Ling traded in Adani Group shares through a Mauritius-based investment fund. The OCCRP reports that Ahli and Chang might be found to have been acting on behalf of Adani promoters. If so, their shareholding would bring insider investment in Adani Group to over 75%. This would potentially indicate stock manipulation under Indian law. Ahli and Changs’ investment management company reportedly paid a company owned by Vinod Adani, the brother of Adani Group chair Gautam Adani, for investment advice.
Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli is a Dubai-based business consultant, who is listed as an officer in a British Virgin Islands-based securities investment firm linked to Adani Group. Meanwhile, China-based Chang Chung-Ling has held positions on the boards of multiple Adani Group companies.
Adani Group replied “Contrary to your claim of new evidence/proofs, these are nothing but a rehash of unsubstantiated allegations levelled in the Hindenburg report. Our response to the Hindenburg report is available on our website. Suffice it to state that there is neither any truth to nor any basis for making any of the said allegations against the Adani Group and its promoters, and we expressly reject all of them."
