According to a report on Thursday, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an organization backed by George Soros and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, is planning a ‘exposé’ on some corporate houses in India.
According to PTI, which cited three persons with knowledge of the subject, OCCRP, which describes itself as “an investigative reporting platform formed by 24 nonprofit investigative centers… spread across Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” may publish a report or a series of pieces.
This disclosure, if accurate, comes months after Hindenburg Research, a US short seller, shocked markets with a devastating report on Gautam Adani’s Adani Group.
OCCRP, which was founded in 2006, claims to specialize in reporting on organized crime and mostly publishes these news stories through collaborations with media outlets.
It lists the Open Society Foundations of George Soros, a financier known for sponsoring radical causes around the world, as one of its institutional donors on its website. Other foundations include the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Oak Foundation.
OCCRP
According to sources, the ‘exposure’ may involve outside funds investing in the corporate house’s equities.
The identity of the corporate house was not immediately revealed, but agents are understood to be closely monitoring the capital market.
In a January 24 analysis, Hindenburg Research accused accounting fraud, stock price manipulation, and inappropriate use of tax havens of causing a stock market rout that destroyed close to $150 billion in market value at its lowest point. All charges have been refuted by Adani Group.
A Supreme Court-appointed expert committee to evaluate claims in the Hindenburg Report indicated in May this year that there was evidence of a buildup in short positions on Adani Group equities prior to the release of the Hindenburg report. Profits were made by squaring off holdings after prices plummeted following the disclosure of the damning claims.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED), a financial crime-fighting agency, “found intelligence about potentially violative and concerted selling by specific parties just ahead of the publication of the Hindenburg report, and this may lead to credible charges of concerted destabilisation of the Indian markets, and Sebi ought to be probing such actions under securities laws,” it said, citing an ED response.
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