Indian police said on Saturday they had arrested the managing director of the Adani Group on charges of evading customs duty.
“We arrested Rajesh Adani for undervaluing imported naptha and furnace oil,” Harsh Bahl, spokesman of the Central Bureau of Investigation said, adding the customs duty evasion amounted to about 8 million rupees.
The diversified Adani Group, under its flagship firm Adani Enterprises Ltd (ADEL.BO: Quote, Profile, Research), engages in commodity trading across a range of products from metals to minerals and spices.
The Adani Group also includes Adani Power (ADAN.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) which last year raised $630 million in one of the first large IPOs in India in the months of global financial downturn.
The company said in a statement that the customs department had neither served any notice nor filed cases against either the company or Adani.
“Mr Rajesh Adani was not responsible for any day-to-day business operations,” it said. “The company is surprised and pursuing the matter with the assistance of its legal counsel.”
