Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli facilitate Insider trading for Adani Group

The Financial Times (FT) reveals that Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli, a 45-year-old from the United Arab Emirates, and Taiwan’s Chang, a 50-year-old, allegedly used Bermuda’s Global Opportunities Fund to amass and trade large positions in Adani Group shares.

An employee of Vinod Adani, brother of Adani Group founder Gautam Adani, supervised the two investors' activity. This activity raises questions about the potential bypassing of Indian regulations to prevent share price manipulation.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project shared the report with FT, following an intricate paper trail. This identification of potentially controversial owners of Adani stocks is significant as it follows Hindenburg Research's January accusation against the Adani Group, labelling it as orchestrating the "largest con in corporate history.

Hindenburg alleged that entities controlled by Vinod Adani manipulated the share prices of several of the group's 10 listed entities. The conglomerate denied this accusation, but it still resulted in a US$90bn reduction in the Adani Group's valuation.

Who is Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli?

Emirati Nasser Ali Shaban Ahli is one of the two close associates of Vinod Adani who facilitated the routing of investments into Adani Group stocks via offshore funds. Ahli serves as a director of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based consultancy company Al Jawda Trade & Services. The report by US short-seller Hindenburg Research, released in January, did not feature Ahli's name, but it did mention the names of a few related firms.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project report describes Ahli as the owner of Gulf Arij Trading FZE (UAE), a beneficial owner in Mid East Ocean Trade & Investment (Mauritius), and a ‘controlling person’ in Gulf Asia Trade & Investment (British Virgin Islands). People allege that these firms are involved in the money trail and offshore traders of Adani companies.

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) investigated Adani companies' alleged illegal diamond trading in 2007, and one of the initial cases where his name featured.

Quartz describes Ahli as ‘Adani Group’s man in Dubai’ in a report. It further states that he founded the company Electrogen Infra FZE in 2009 in Dubai and later transferred the ownership of the company to Vinod Adani, the brother of Gautam Adani, in March 2010.

DRI investigated Electrogen Infra again for alleged siphoning of funds and the Hindenburg report accused them of over-invoicing power equipment.

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