US prosecutors are investigating whether Indian billionaire Gautam Adani's companies imported Iranian liquefied petroleum gas into India through their Mundra port, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
A WSJ investigation published on Monday found tankers travelling between Mundra in the western Indian state of Gujarat and the Persian Gulf exhibited traits experts say are common for ships evading sanctions.
The US Justice Department is reviewing activities of several LPG tankers used to ship cargoes to Adani Enterprises, the WSJ said, citing people familiar with the matter.
"Adani categorically denies any deliberate engagement in sanctions evasion or trade involving Iranian-origin LPG," a company spokesman told the WSJ in a statement.
"Further, we are not aware of any investigation by US authorities on this subject."
US President Donald Trump said in May that all purchases of Iranian oil or petrochemical products must stop and any country or person buying any from the country would be immediately subject to secondary sanctions.
$250 million bribery scandal
"Gautam Adani, Asia's second-richest man, is trying to get the Trump administration to drop foreign bribery charges against him. Instead, he is facing a new front in his fight with prosecutors: a probe into whether his companies are buying Iranian petrochemical products," WSJ reported.
Any inquiry into Adani would come months after US authorities indicted Adani and his nephew, Sagar Adani, alleging they paid bribes to secure power supply contracts, and misled US investors during fund-raising in the United States.
Adani Group has called the accusations "baseless" and vowed to seek "all possible legal recourse".
Last year, US prosecutors released a 54-page indictment that alleged Adani personally met with Indian officials to advance the illicit deal and secure contracts worth billions of dollars for a renewable-energy company owned by the conglomerate.
Prosecutors alleged that Adani, 62 years old, and two Adani Green Energy executives conspired to misrepresent the renewable-energy firm’s anti-bribery and corruption practices to US investors and financial institutions to obtain financing.
