Indian conglomerate Adani Enterprises Ltd. has agreed to pay $275 million to settle U.S. allegations that it imported Iranian liquefied petroleum gas through a Dubai-based middleman while routing dollar payments through American banks, OFAC disclosed on Monday.

The settlement comes on the same day that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have asked a judge to drop bribery-related charges against Gutam Andani, the founder and chairman of Adani Enterprises, who had pledged to invest $10 billion in the United States should the U.S. Justice Department investigation and a civil case brought against him and others by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) be dropped, The New York Times reported. 

The SEC resolved its case against Adani and his nephew, Sagar Adani, with an $18 million fine on Thursday, the newspaper said. The DOJ did not tie Adani’s offered $10 billion with its decision to resolve the criminal case, the NYT said. 

In its settlement with Adani Enterprises, OFAC said the company purchased 35 shipments of LPG between November 2023 and June 2025 from a Dubai supplier that purported to be moving Omani and Iraqi cargo but in fact served as a conduit for Iranian supply. U.S. financial institutions ultimately processed 32 dollar-denominated payments totaling more than $192 million for the shipments. 

“Red flags should have put AEL on notice that the LPG actually originated from Iran,” the agency said in its enforcement release.

Adani Enterprises entered the LPG import business in June 2023, bringing cargoes through Mundra Port in Gujarat, which is operated by affiliate Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd.. Facing competition from established importers, the company sought a “discounted source” of LPG and in July 2023 met with representatives of the Dubai supplier, OFAC said.

The first cargo, a load of fully refrigerated propane delivered in November 2023 on a 25-year-old Handysize tanker, was documented as originating from Sohar, Oman, OFAC said. But Sohar is not a significant source of Omani LPG exports and lacked the fully refrigerated loading infrastructure that the shipment would have required, the agency added.

Adani went on to purchase 34 additional cargoes from the Dubai supplier or its affiliates, all later determined to be of Iranian origin, OFAC said.

In the enforcement action, OFAC cited a series of compliance red flags that Adani failed to investigate, including vessels engaged in Automatic Identification System manipulation, prolonged “dark” periods, uneconomic port calls, and frequent name, ownership, and flag-state changes. Adani separately received four third-party warnings that the cargoes might be Iranian origin and still traded with the Dubai supplier at a suspiciously cheap price, OFAC noted. 

In February 2024, the Dubai supplier’s bank stopped payment on one shipment citing “internal policy,” before allowing it to proceed after the supplier produced what OFAC described as “apparently falsified shipping documentation.” The supplier subsequently directed Adani to route payments through an account at a different Dubai-based bank, the agency said.

Adani appeared to have believed the third-party allegations originated from competitors and that face-valid shipping documents required no further inquiry, OFAC said. An affiliate of the Dubai supplier had been designated by OFAC in March 2023 under Executive Order 13846 for buying LPG from sanctioned Iranian producer Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries, though the agency said it did not appear Adani was aware of that designation at the time.

The sanctions agency used the settlement to deliver a broader warning to non-U.S. energy importers, saying buyers should verify certificates of origin issued in jurisdictions where Iranian-origin product is known to be disguised, “such as Oman, United Arab Emirates, or Iraq,” and should not rely solely on counterparty warranties.

“If a deal is too good to be true, it probably is,” the office also warned. 

The settlement and DOJ reversal are the latest in a string of legal and regulatory matters confronting the Adani group. 

U.S. federal prosecutors in November 2024 indicted Gautam Adani and his nephew over alleged bribery promises. Swiss prosecutors have separately been investigating an alleged “front man” for Adani investments in a money-laundering and document-forgery probe since 2021 and have frozen roughly $311 million tied to Adani.

In 2023, Gautam Adani was accused in a report of “pulling the largest con in corporate history” by manipulating his company’s market value.