DIGGING INTO ADANI

Welcome to 4 corners

SARAH FERGUSON: Few developments in Australia have aroused such passion as the proposal by the Indian corporate colossus Adani to build a giant coal mine in Queensland's galilee basin.

The Federal and Queensland governments say the project - the world's biggest export coal mine - will provide thousands of jobs and a huge boost to the economy.

Environmentalists claim the mine may pollute the Great Barrier Reef.

While graziers fear it will spoil the underground water so crucial to their farms.

Just as controversial is the prospect of a loan of up to 1 billion dollars backed by the Australian government to finance the project.

The Adani group and its billionaire chairman Gautam Adani were little known in Australia before the mine proposal.

In India, the company is a dominant player in the economy, with interests in ports, power stations, mining, real estate and food production.

It has also been dogged by controversy, including allegations of environmental destruction, money laundering and bribery.

Reporter Stephen Long and Producer Wayne Harley travelled to India to investigate...

SANDRA CORREIA, MOTHER: I feel sick, because Adani is heartless.

SAVIO CORREIA, FATHER: They have flouted all possible regulations, they have, their compliance has been pathetic.

STEPHEN LONG, REPORTER: Stanislaus Correia is six years old.

He's struggling to breath - there's coal dust in his lungs.

SANDRA CORREIA: We close the windows so that the dust doesn't come in.

Even then my youngest son Stanislaus gets up in the morning and vomits all coal out.

STEPHEN LONG: He vomits up coal?

SANDRA CORREIA: Yes, coal.

STEPHEN LONG: The Correia's oldest son Sherwyn has also been plagued by ill health from coal pollution.

SHERWYN CORREIA: As a young boy, um.

I still get these repeated, uh, you know cold, running nose and all that.

And, uh, my parents had to take me again and again to the hospital.

I still suffer even today and my classmates are suffering.

SANDRA CORREIA: The minute we went out of town like to Kerala or Delhi they were perfectly normal within two days.

On our return, back within two days it would start again.

STEPHEN LONG: The Correia family live in Vasco da Gama, a city built around one major industry - a port.

The giant Indian conglomerate Adani has a large coal berth here.

SAVIO CORREIA: I would call coal as the curse on, on Vasco, because uh, it has, the pollution, uh, the air pollution has been so rampant.

Um, there are so many people who've been facing health problems.

STEPHEN LONG: Adani's coal berth is not the only one - or the only cause of Vasco's poor air quality.

But Adani has had a running battle with the pollution watchdog since it began operating nearly 4 years ago.

SAVIO CORREIA: The pollution control board issued a 'show cause' notice as to why Adani's operations should not be shut down.

STEPHEN LONG: The sick children's father, Savio, happens to be an environmental lawyer.

He's been collecting evidence on Adani's pollution and its violations of licence conditions at the port.

SAVIO CORREIA: On 14 occasions, out of 24 the values of particulate matter exceeded the permissible limits.

STEPHEN LONG: Wow that's quite a lot.

SAVIO CORREIA: Absolutely.

SANDRA CORREIA: The well-to-do off, they can get out of Vasco, they can build flats out there, but what about the poor?

STEPHEN LONG: In a rundown district of Vasco, Dr Baban runs a busy hospital and general practice.

Each day, he treats the sick, the poor, and the victims of airborne pollution.

DR BABAN: In my practice, I find that at least 22 - 25% of the patients who come are with the respiratory diseases.

A high number, and this goes from adult, to mid adolescent to children - and children who are suffering, are badly suffering.

STEPHEN LONG: Adani denies that it's polluting the air.

But just two months ago, a report by the State Pollution Control Board found otherwise. T

The report said that emissions of tiny toxic particles were "consistently high in the port area with highest levels .... in Berth 5A and Berth 7."

Berth 7 is Adani's operation.

DR BABAN: Coal is the one in which particles remain and they go and stick in the lung air cells.

It is like a smoking a cigarette.

In a- in a death of a cell which takes place in the lungs, in a tissue.

It's permanent damage.

STEPHEN LONG: Two years ago, the pollution control board ordered that mounds of coal be no more than five metres high.

Adani refused, saying this wouldn't be economic or practical.

When we were there, some of the coal was piled higher than a 15-metre fence ...designed to stop the dust blowing into town.

SAVIO CORREIA: I have seen from my own experience coal being stacked up to 12 metres at Adani's port - regularly.

STEPHEN LONG: For this family, it's not just a debate on rules and regulations; it's about the health of their children.

SANDRA CORREIA: It makes me feel very bad to see him suffer.

As a mother, it is, I have no words to say how bad I feel for the child.

And if, I feel bad for my child, there are so many mothers who also feel bad for the children.

STEPHEN LONG: In slick videos, Adani presents itself as a model corporate citizen.

In keeping with its size and status.

For in its home country, the Adani Group is a corporate colossus.

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: He's the biggest generator of electricity in the private sector, both coal-based as well as solar energy.

He's the biggest importer of coal, much of it from Indonesia.

He's also the biggest miner of coal within India.

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: I think it's a very very interesting story here was a business person who very few people new about 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

STEPHEN LONG: Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is renowned in India - an economist, author, investigative journalist, commentator and public intellectual.

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: And I find it really fascinating that here is a person who nobody knew 15 or 20 years ago whose rise has been truly meteoric and who really in some more ways than one kind of epitomises the working of the nexus between big business and politics.

STEPHEN LONG: He's completing a book on Gautam Adani and his business empire.

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: And today he's not just one of India's richest men, he controls, uh, key sectors.

Mr. Adani's conglomerate directly, indirectly controls the activities of 11 ports located along the East Coast and the West Coast of India.

STEPHEN LONG: At more than one of those ports, the Adani Group has allegedly behaved in a manner entirely inconsistent with its corporate rhetoric.

It's a three-hour drive from Vasco da Gama in Goa, across the border to the southern Indian state of Karnataka, and on to the port town of Belekeri.

Today Belekeri's a sleepy little fishing village, but look closely and you'll find the rusty remnants of an iron ore loading facility - once operated by Adani.

Here, in 2010, the Adani Group's role in one of the biggest scandals in India's recent history was exposed.

NDTV NEWS REPORT: An otherwise minor port on the coast of Kanataka, Belekeri, turns into headlines as it emerges at the centre of what could be the biggest mining scam in the country.

STEPHEN LONG: Seven years on, it stands as an ugly reflection on corruption and greed.

This is what remains of Adani's port at Belekeri, clearly derelict now, but in its heyday, the heart of a massive illegal operation.

Nearly 8 million tonnes of iron ore was illegally mined then illegally shipped out of the port here, much of it through Adani's terminal.

A report on the affair called the iron ore export scam a "mafia-type operation".

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: The report was prepared by the people's ombudsman, the Lokayukta, Justice Santosh Hegde, which documented how various private firms and private groups including the Adanis just about broke every law of the country.

From laws pertaining to preservation of the environment, to customs duties, to local taxes, to export rules.

JOSY JOSEPH, AUTHOR, JOURNALIST: We are truly living through India's gilded age, what we saw in the United States or anywhere else in the world, it's been repeated here all over again, we have these robber barons who thrive on extraction industries.

STEPHEN LONG: Author and journalist Josy Joseph has spent his career exposing corruption; he's examined the Belekeri port scam.

JOSY JOSEPH: The detailed report by the anti-corruption Ombudsman of southern state of Karnataka, is one of the most compelling and the finest documentation of corruption in this country that independent India has ever seen.

There are pages after pages of documentation of how Adani Enterprises was involved in letting miners illegally export thousands and thousands of tonnes of iron ore from India abroad and there are detailed documentation and tabulation of bribes paid at various levels and how it was all manipulated.

STEPHEN LONG: According to the report, records seized from the Belekeri office of Adani Enterprises show that it systematically bribed a host of regulators, public officials and politicians.

The ombudsman's report detailed the corrupt payments:

"Money has been regularly paid to Port authorities, Customs authorities, the Police Department, Mines and Geology and even to MLAs/MPs."

"All these payments were not shown in the balance sheet of the company, unaccounted and paid in cash."

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: It was just unprecedented the way in which honest officers were not allowed to function, how the corrupt prevailed.

STEPHEN LONG: No charges were laid against Adani Enterprises after a subsequent criminal investigation and Adani denies any wrongdoing.

HARSH MISHRA, FORMER CEO, ADANI AUSTRALIA: Err, we did not pay bribes and there is no reason for us, there is no rationale for us as a service provider, to pay bribes to export illegally mined iron ore.

STEPHEN LONG: But the ombudsman stands by the allegations in the report.

The seized records show that all up between 2004 and 2008 Adani paid the equivalent of more than half a million Australian dollars in bribes, and that was before the illegal operation really ramped up.

In a poor rural area that's an astounding amount of money.

What does it tell you about the ethics of the Adani Group?

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: What this clearly indicates is that here is a business conglomerate who will not stop at anything to maximise its profits.

STEPHEN LONG: Nearly 10 thousand kilometres from Belekeri, in outback Queensland, lies the Galilee Basin.

It's here Adani wants to build the world's biggest export coal mine.

Licensed to extract 60 million tonne a year.

Adani Enterprises, which was named in the Belekeri scandal, is the ultimate owner of the planned Carmichael mine.

ROBERT HOLLINGSWORTH, GRAZIER: My father came here at the end of 1946 and lived here until he died a few years back and my mother's family, they came from a property to the north, and they came in the 1870s.

ROBERT HOLLINGSWORTH (in car): That cow Keilly, she's had a little baby calf.

I thought she was just fat.

I was going to send her to the meatworks.

STEPHEN LONG: The Hollingsworth's own a big cattle station nearby; they're among many landholders affected.

ADRIAN HOLLINGSWORTH, GRAZIER: The water's evaporating like anything now, it sort of stopped there for a while ... air's going real dry again.

ROBERT HOLLINGSWORTH: Have to cart water up to Meridian if it goes dry.

STEPHEN LONG: It's a short drive across the Hollingsworth property to the high ground that overlooks the Galilee Basin.

ROBERT HOLLINGSWORTH: The mine is on the other side of that ridge over there about 30 kilometres away.

STEPHEN LONG: Out here, water is precious.

The State Government's granted Adani unlimited access to groundwater for 60 years - and the mine's impact will be massive.

STEPHEN LONG: So what sort of area are we talking about?

ADRIAN HOLLINGSWORTH: Oh, it would have to be thousands of square miles.

STEPHEN LONG: Thousands of square miles with the underground water affected?

ROBERT HOLLINGSWORTH: Yes.

STEPHEN LONG: 34 landholders have been told Adani's mine could diminish their water supply.

ROBERT HOLLINGSWORTH: They've told us it will lower our bore levels by about 20 centimetres.

The amount of water that we can pump out of the bores will be less and they're not really certain of how, what the effect on the water quality will be because the water will be flying through rock faster and it could dissolve minerals and salts into the water.

ADRIAN HOLLINGSWORTH: One of our bores is already too salty for a human to drink.

Cattle can use it.

If that did happen well that bore may become useless.

There may still be enough water there for the stock to drink but too dangerous for them to drink it.

STEPHEN LONG: Adani is offering affected graziers agreements that say it will fix, or make good, any loss of water.

They would have to prove Adani was responsible for the water loss.

ROBERT HOLLINGSWORTH: The thing with underground water is that once you effect the stream's flow through the ground, especially with a mine, then that's forever.

Like when the mine's finished and there's a hole in the ground left, those bores won't come back up.

So, it's a permanent impact on the entire area.

ADRIAN HOLLINGSWORTH: You can't live without food and water.

If there's no water, there's no life.

There's no food, there's no life.

You can't eat coal.

STEPHEN LONG: Grazier Bruce Currie's property is south of the Adani mine.

He's been fighting plans for coal mining in the region for years because of concerns about its impact on groundwater.

BRUCE CURRIE, GRAZIER: The Galilee basin is part of the feed into the Great Artesian Basin, and when you consider that the Great Artesian Basin is like the barrier reef, it's an international icon, for that, for us as stewards of that asset, to sit back and let someone that's got such a destructive environmental record free access to that international icon, is just inconceivable.

Like how could anyone in my generation stand up with any degree of pride and accept that? We should be ashamed.

STEPHEN LONG: Six months ago, Currie travelled with a delegation of conservationists to Adani's home state of Gujarat.

BRUCE CURRIE: I spent a week looking at the Adani operation, the impacts, and what I saw is just devastating, to talk to, I think I spoke to representatives of about 8000 fishermen, there was about three, 4000 primary producers, and about the same of small scale salt harvesters, and nowhere did I get a positive report about the impacts on their livelihood.

STEPHEN LONG: For Adani, the Mundra Port in Gujarat is its showcase development.

The largest port in India.

ADANI CORPORATE VIDEO: Once was one a rural backward region is now a thriving hub with Adani Group's investments and initiatives.

STEPHEN LONG: If you believe Adani, its environmental record is impeccable.

ADANI CORPORATE VIDEO: Adani is recently recognised as a Green Port.

STEPHEN LONG: But on the ground in Mundra there's plenty who'll tell you that Adani's conduct is anything but clean and green.

KANCHI KOHLI, CENTRE FOR POLICY RESEARCH, NEW DELHI: In Mundra, I think the farmers have very clearly complained that the water has gotten saline and they are unable to use water on their farmlands.

The fishing community, of course it has been impacted, they've complained of fish catch going down, they've complained of access issues, some of them have moved away.

KANCHI KOHLI (with office colleague): So, we've got these papers finally, there are about 4 or 5 such files that have come in.

STEPHEN LONG: Kanchi Kohli works for the Centre for Policy Research.

She travelled to Mundra to work with local villagers on what's known as a 'ground-truthing exercise'.

KANCHI KOHLI: The idea was to basically look at the conditions of the environmental approval and see whether they had been met or not.

STEPHEN LONG: Their report documented multiple breaches of Adani's environmental approval.

KANCHI KOHLI: The approval said, mangroves should not be destroyed while the port is being constructed.

There was massive destruction of mangroves.

Uh, the approval condition said that sand dunes should not be destroyed.

They were destroyed.

Creeks should not be filled up.

Creeks had been blocked and filled up.

Uh, access to the fishing, uh, fishing vessels to the- to the fishing harbours into the sea, uh, should not be, uh, cordoned off.

That had happened.

So, these are very clear, obvious violations, that people could document themselves, that were visible on the ground.

NDTV NEWS REPORT: The environment ministry in its 'show cause' notice questioned Mundra port on its large-scale reclamation of creeks using dredged material, destroying mangroves, and constructing a township, airport and hospital, without a coastal clearance.

STEPHEN LONG: Jairam Ramesh, an elder statesman of India's Congress Party, was Environment Minister at the time.

He commissioned a separate report by an expert committee.

JAIRAM RAMESH, FORMER MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT, INDIA: The report found not accidental violations, but it found wilful violations, deliberate violations and also - very worrisome - what it found was an attempt made to actually gloss over the environmental impact and minimise what was clearly a major environmental impact.

STEPHEN LONG: Adani denies that it was responsible for the ecological destruction and violations in the port of Mundra?

JAIRAM RAMESH: See I would rather believe a- uh, a committee that had gone, it would- it had independent, uh, men and women of proven integrity, credentials.

They went, they talked to people, they saw what was happening, and they gave, uh, a detailed report.

KANCHI KOHLI: It's hard to believe that the only player in the area since the early 2000s, who's doing massive port and railways development in the area, is not responsible for this.

Because there is no other player.

STEPHEN LONG: So, the denials are absurd.

KANCHI KOHLI: Yes, it is.

STEPHEN LONG: The State's highest court found even more extensive breaches.

It ruled the entire area had been developed without any environmental approval from the national government.

STEPHEN LONG: What kind of development are we talking about?

KANCHI KOHLI: Two or three ports, uh, individual, uh, petrochemical units, other units that were all operating with - within the, uh, special economic zone.

All of them, uh, were technically operating without individual approvals, as well as the entire special economic zone having an approval.

STEPHEN LONG: A port? A petrochemical plant? I understand an airport and a township developed without any environmental approval.

That's amazing.

KANCHI KOHLI: Yes, it is.

STEPHEN LONG: South of Mundra is the Hazira Port at Surat.

Here, India's National Green Tribunal found that Adani once again carried out illegal work.

Undaunted by [an] absence of environmental clearance or coastal regulation zone clearance" and without "care for any adverse order or adverse impact on environment".

It said Adani's "irresponsible attitude must be deprecated" and issued a $5 million dollar fine.

Adani Group disputes the rulings on Mundra and Hazira and has appealed against the decisions in India's Supreme Court.

JAIRAM RAMESH: The Adani Group's track record on environmental management, uh within the country, leaves a lot to be desired.

STEPHEN LONG: We went to Gujarat to see for ourselves.

In Mundra, Adani dug up this common land used by graziers for its port development.

Graziers told us about a spate of stillbirths among the cows and buffalo.

They blame fly ash from Adani's coal-fired power plant for contaminating the land.

We didn't get to see much else.

Not long after, we were confronted by Adani security - and told to leave.

INDIAN TRANSLATOR (in hotel room): So, are you, are you in Mundra ... can you tell me who is this person who sent the email?

STEPHEN LONG: Back at the hotel, things escalated.

Our translator, myself and producer Wayne Harley were summoned to the foyer.

WAYNE HARLEY, 4 Corners Producer: Right, who are the gentlemen that want to see us? Who are you? Wait wait wait, who are you, who are you?

CRIME BRANCH DETECTIVE: We are police

WAYNE HARLEY: Right, Can I see your identification please?

CRIME BRANCH DETECTIVE: Gadeja.

WAYNE HARLEY: Righto, and you are from any particular branch?

CRIME BRANCH DETECTIVE: Crime Branch.

WAYNE HARLEY: Crime Branch?

STEPHEN LONG: And why does the Crime Branch want to see us?

CRIME BRANCH DETECTIVE: Some formalities.

STEPHEN LONG: Our Crime Branch interrogation lasted on and off for about five hours - gradually ramping up as the police took calls and riding instructions from someone.

There was no point staying ... we'd been promised a crime branch entourage the next day, killing our prospects of filming with local people.

We left for the airport at 4 AM.

Police had warned us officers from three intelligence agencies would be arriving to see us if we stayed.

STEPHEN LONG: It's 10 hours since we left Mundra, we're back in Delhi, but we've already made the local press in Gujarat.

This article from the friend of Kutch newspaper we've had translated from Gujarati, and it describes our suspicious activities, our high-tech equipment and how the police triumphed over the Australian journalists.

It said police had come to know that we were there to "produce and broadcast a video against Adani Group's project in Australia but were doing so without any permission from port authorities or the Adani Group."

The 16 GB of footage from such videography was deleted by the police.

STEPHEN LONG: What do you think of what happened to us in Mundra?

JOSY JOSEPH: It's frightening and but it's a reality, it's a reality that the robber barons of our times have, uh, and will continue to use all kinds of intimidatory [sic] techniques, whether it's physical, whether it is using the state machinery, and that has been the case with investigative journalist, activists, and other kind of people who stand up and question these business houses.

STEPHEN LONG: Australian politicians have received a friendlier reception.

In recent years a cavalcade of federal and state MPs have enjoyed the hospitality of Gautam Adani... their trips have cost the taxpayer more than 300 thousand dollars.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, a vocal Adani backer, is the latest to make the pilgrimage.

ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK (shakes hands with Gautum Adani): Thank you very much, thank you, it's wonderful.

(Press Scrum - Queensland Parliament)

UNKNOWN REPORTER: Hello Premier.

STEPHEN LONG: Stephen Long from 4 Corners, can I talk to you about Adani and the evidence of bribery and corruption.

ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK: I'm about to go into caucus.

STEPHEN LONG: Have you read the report of the Ombudsman from Karnataka?

ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK: No, happy to have a look at it for you.

STEPHEN LONG: I think you should, have you seen the evidence of the shell companies they've set up linked to tax havens?

ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK: Well I do know about Adani and that means thousands of jobs for regional Queenslanders and I welcome you to go out there and talk to region Queensland.

STEPHEN LONG: Why do you keep on claiming ten thousand jobs when the land court has written to your government and said those claims are overstated?

ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK: You should go up there and talk to those people who have lost their jobs and they're hurting, regional Queensland is hurting and we will do everything we can to get people back into work.

STEPHEN LONG: Why are you giving them false promise by saying ten thousand jobs when the evidence says otherwise and the court has said that.

STEPHEN LONG: The claim that Adani's Queensland mining venture will create 10,000 extra jobs is one of its key selling points.

ADANI AUSTRALIA AD: Adani means 10,000 jobs for Queensland workers, from young apprentices through to older skilled workers.

Adani is proud to build a long-term future with Queensland.

STEPHEN LONG: The State's Land Court told the Queensland Government that the net jobs gain would be less than fifteen hundred nationwide.

But needing to win North Queensland seats in in a coming state election, the Premier has preferred to adopt Adani's spin.

(Delegation in Mundra confronts Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk)

UNKNOWN WOMAN FROM DELEGATION: And how many jobs are going to be done by Adani?

ANNASTACIA PALASZCZUK: 10,000 regional jobs

UNKNOWN WOMAN FROM DELEGATION: That is absolute rubbish, absolute rubbish.

'THIS IS ADANI' PROMOTION: Did you know that it's not just the direct workers who benefit from Adani's mining, rail, and port investments in the Galilee Basin?

STEPHEN LONG: If you believe Adani and the federal and state governments, the North Queensland mine will also result in a revenue bonanza.

ADANI AUSTRALIA AD: ... and these local resource, rail, and port operations will see $22 billion worth of royalties in and taxes reinvested into Queensland.

STEPHEN LONG: Adani's record in India leaves a lot of room for doubt.

ADANI AUSTRALIA AD: This is Adani.

INDIAN TV NEWS REPORT: The managing director of the Adani Group Mr Rajesh Adani who's been arrested by the CBI in Goa for alleged non-payment of customs duty ...

STEPHEN LONG: The Adani Group faces multiple allegations of tax dodging, financial malpractice and financial crime.

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: In the last few years, there have been a number of show cause notices issued by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, which is the investigative wing of the Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance, and the DRI suspects that there was trade-based money laundering.

STEPHEN LONG: Adani Group companies head the list of those under investigation for an alleged coal import scam.

A customs alert said the objective appeared to be twofold - profiting at the expense of consumers and "siphoning off money abroad".

PRASHANT BHUSHAN, PUBLIC INTEREST LITIGATOR: They found they had been over invoicing the coal imports to India by round-tripping them and routing them through a number of shell companies that were also owned by them and which were located in tax havens etc.

STEPHEN LONG: Prashant Bhushan is a public interest lawyer who's taken several cases against Adani companies.

PRASHANT BHUSHAN: The modus operandi is the same.

They just set up shell companies essentially in tax havens and through them you, over-invoice either the import of coal or equipment, in order to firstly cheat the Indian tax authorities et cetera.

And secondly, cheat the shareholders of their own companies.

STEPHEN LONG: He's recently commenced a High Court case demanding action against Adani Group.

STEPHEN LONG: In your opinion, these are financial crimes?

PRASHANT BHUSHAN: Yes.

STEPHEN LONG: Criminal offences.

PRASHANT BHUSHAN: Yes, yes. They are financial crimes, they are uh, crimes under the Indian penal

code.

They are crimes under the various financial laws of India.

STEPHEN LONG: And the only reason they haven't been convicted in most cases is, in your view,

political protection?

PRASHANT BHUSHAN: Yes.

Uh, that appears to be the case.

STEPHEN LONG: In 2014, authorities documented an alleged scam involving equipment imports - with a money trail across the globe.

Adani companies in India bought equipment from China and South Korea.

The goods went straight to India.

But the invoices went via a tax-free zone in the United Arab Emirates, where a middle company added a huge mark-up.

That money, totalling nearly a billion dollars, was siphoned off to Mauritius, a notorious tax haven.

PRASHANT BHUSHAN: They appear to be crooks from all this evidence that the Department of Revenue Intelligence has unearthed.

They clearly appear to be crooks.

STEPHEN LONG: Crooks is a strong word.

PRASHANT BHUSHAN: Yes, it is, but unfortunately that's the only word that can be used in these

circumstances.

STEPHEN LONG: Vinod Adani, Gautam Adani's older brother, controls the companies that shifted the money to Mauritius.

PARANJOY GUHA THAKURTA: Mr Vinod Adani, also known as Vinod Shantilal Adani, also known as Vinod Shantilal Shah, is in charge of the overseas operations of the Adani Group with, dozens of companies, not only in Hong Kong and Dubai and Indonesia but in many tax havens.

Treasure islands.

STEPHEN LONG: Investigating officers accused Vinod Adani, along with Adani companies, of executing a "planned conspiracy of siphoning off foreign exchange abroad ... and Trade Based Money Laundering".

Adani Group denies this.

It told authorities that "Vinod Adani or Vinod Shah is a Non-resident Indian ... having permanent residency in Singapore who was "not at all having any involvement in any Adani group of companies."

TIM BUCKLEY, INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY ECONOMICS AND FINANCIAL ANALYSIS: It's absurd to say that Vinod Adani is totally independent of Gautam Adani, when the two of them have ownership structures that are clearly connected in Singapore and through the Cayman Islands, and through multiple business dealings to suggest that they were independent businessmen when they are brothers and they've been working together and they are major shareholders in the whole Adani enterprises vehicle is absurd.

STEPHEN LONG: But in late August, another official said the power equipment case against Adani should be "quashed and set aside" - accepting Adani's assurances it had done nothing wrong; that finding is being challenged in Delhi's High Court.

JOSY JOSEPH: To say the least, the order looks slightly bizarre and absurd.

The order has been issued by the authority without listening to the very investigating team that has done the investigations; it's a one-sided order.

STEPHEN LONG: The investigations have big implications for Australia.

Australia's Abbot Point Coal Terminal is owned in tax havens via private companies controlled by Vinod Adani, a.k.a Vinod Shah.

TIM BUCKLEY: I think there's a national security issue here.

It is one of our biggest ports, it's owned in this opaque structure through multiple tax havens.

The sole director in Singapore is Vinod Shah and Vinod Shah is under multiple corruption and tax fraud inquiries by the Indian government, and yet here we are with the port, one of the biggest ports in Australia controlled by Vinod Shah.

ADAM WALTERS, RESEARCH DIRECTOR, ENERGY & RESOURCE INSIGHTS: Adani has an extraordinary murky and complex corporate structure in order to conduct what in a way is really quite a simple series of projects in Australia.

STEPHEN LONG: Adam Walters has been piecing together Adani's opaque web.

His research shows potentially billions of dollars from the Carmichael mine could be siphoned off to tax havens via companies controlled by Vinod Adani.

Adani's planned railway is the conduit.

STEPHEN LONG: So, there's two dollars a tonne payment from the mine into one of those railway trusts and they can skin it either way, they can shift that money via Singapore to the Cayman Islands or it can be shipped directly to the British Virgin Islands.

ADAM WALTERS: Yes, Adani has put in place a structure which allows them to take any profits that are made on the rail project in Australia and directly distribute them to the notorious tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.

STEPHEN LONG: Yet the Commonwealth and Queensland governments want a federal government fund, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, to finance the railway with a loan of up to a billion dollars.

ADAM WALTERS: I think if I was the Australian government, and I was considering giving a billion dollar loan to enable a rail project, I would be very concerned by what appears to be a corporate structure that is designed to maximise profits in tax havens and has as a sole director of the intermediate companies, somebody who has been under investigation for very serious financial offences in India.

(Insiders' Programme 18/10/2015)

BARRIE CASSIDY: Josh Frydenburg, good morning, welcome.

JOSH FRYDENBURG: Nice to be with you Barrie.

Barrie Cassidy: Do you think the Adani mine will ever go ahead?

JOSH FRYDENBURG: I do, and the Carmichael project ...

STEPHEN LONG: In Australia, we're told the coal from Adani's Carmichael mine will free millions of people in India from energy poverty.

JOSH FRYDENBERG, FMR MINISTER FOR RESOURCES, ENERGY AND NORTHERN AUSTRALIA: It will help lift hundreds of millions of people out of energy poverty not just in India but right across the world.

E.A.S. SARMA, FORMER SECRETARY, INDIAN MINISTRIES OF POWER & FINANCE: You know, the Australian politicians are obviously not properly briefed by their offices about the viability of Adani coal.

STEPHEN LONG: E.A.S. Sarma used to be India's most powerful energy bureaucrat.

He's analysed the economics of Adani's planned Carmichael mine.

E.A.S. SARMA: My assessment is that by the time the Adani coal leaves the Australian coast the cost of it will be roughly about 90 dollars per tonne.

We cannot afford that, it is so expensive.

My assessment is it will not be possible for the Indian consumer, the Indian market to absorb Adani coal.

STEPHEN LONG: Adani's Mundra power plant is meant to take coal from the Australian mine.

But it's haemorrhaging money.

Adani's trying to offload it - for next to nothing.

TIM BUCKLEY: The Mundra power plant has been put up for sale by Adani powers management, this year for 1 Rupee.

They've acknowledged the power plant is financially distressed, its loss making, it's been losing money for six years and the power plant is unviable and Adani management have acknowledged that.

STEPHEN LONG: That's two cents, 1 Rupee is two cents.

TIM BUCKLEY: Two cents, a $US5 billion power plant, and it is the largest import coal fired power plant in the world and it is clearly unviable.

STEPHEN LONG: Adani's Abbot Point Coal Terminal in Queensland is also facing serious financial challenges.

Its saddled with extreme debt - more than Adani paid for the terminal.

TIM BUCKLEY: I've never seen a corporate structure like this in 30 years of financial analysis, so both the port and the mine have massive negative equity, I've never seen a corporate structure so focussed on debt with so little equity or in fact negative equity everywhere you look.

STEPHEN LONG: In the next year, Adani needs to refinance $1.4 billion in debt for the port - and more than $2 billion by 2020.

It's struggling.

Adani's Carmichael mine has been shunned for finance by banks worldwide.

Unless Adani can make the mine happen, it's entire Australian foray may be a house of cards.

TIM BUCKLEY: Adani has damaged the value of its port in trying to free up port capacity for the mine.

So, if the mine does not go ahead, Abbott Point is actual collateral damage and the damage is very significant.

ADAM WALTERS: Absolutely.

It's a reciprocal relationship.

If the mine doesn't go ahead, the port can't be refinanced and the mine can't go ahead without the port.

And this explains, I believe, why we are seeing such a personal connection to the Australian projects and such intense lobbying from the chairman of the Adani group for the Australian projects to go ahead, because he is personally financially dependent upon those projects, and indeed if they do go ahead, he stands to make potentially billions of dollars of profits in Caribbean tax havens from them doing so.

STEPHEN LONG: In far outback Queensland, this small exploration camp is the only sign, so far, of Adani's Carmichael mine.

STEPHEN LONG: It might not look like much now but Adani reckons that work on the giant mine here is going to begin within weeks.

The extraordinary thing is that despite the evidence of bribery and corruption, the shell companies linked to tax havens, the allegations of fraud and money laundering, state and federal governments are bending over backwards to accommodate Adani's every need.

STEVE CIOBO shakes hands with GAUTAM ADANI: Good to see you again Gautam

STEPHEN LONG: Australia's trade minister Steve Ciobo met Gautam Adani in Delhi in August.

STEVE CIOBO: My starting point with respect to opportunities around collaboration and the importance of certainty for investment is critical.

STEPHEN LONG: Within weeks, he announced a rule change that for the first time lets a government agency, the Export Finance Investment Corporation or EFIC, fund domestic mining projects.

STEVE CIOBO: Make no mistake I am absolutely committed to broadening and deepening the trade and investment relationship between India and Australia.

STEPHEN LONG: The change opens the way for the government to make EFIC either partly bankroll Adani, or guarantee loans from private banks.

TIM BUCKLEY: I think this is an act of desperation by our federal government.

Adani's Carmichael project is not bankable by private financial institutions, we've seen every major bank in Australia rule out financing, we've seen major insurance companies rule out financing, we've seen offshore banks rule out financing, it will only get financed if the federal government provides a massive taxpayer subsidy.

STEPHEN LONG: Watching on from Delhi, India's former Environment Minister can't believe what he is seeing.

JAIRAM RAMESH: Ultimately, it's the sovereign decision of the Australian Government, the federal government and the state government.

But public money is involved, and more than public money, natural resources are involved.

I'm very, very surprised that the Australian government, uh, for whatever reason, uh, has uh, seen it fit, uh, to all along handhold Mr. Adani.

So, my message to the Australian Government would certainly be, uh, please demonstrate that you have done more homework than has been the case so far.

SARAH FERGUSON: 4 Corners has been requesting an interview with the Adani group for several weeks.

We received no response until late last week when head office sent a statement denying all allegations of wrongdoing - and saying, "Adani group is an absolute and religiously law-abiding organization."

The statement is on our website. And next week, we investigate the unfolding scandal over the chemical contamination of water supplies in Australian communities. See you then.