The tiny island of Mauritius spent years trying to clean up its image as a base for murky money launderers and shell firms. The short-seller allegations against billionaire Gautam Adani are once again reviving questions about the country’s role as a tax haven for India’s tycoons.
In a report late January that sent Adani stocks on a $153 billion downward spiral, Hindenburg Research said that entities controlled by the tycoon’s brother, Vinod, or his associates used Mauritius as a conduit for money laundering and share-price manipulation. Though the report mentioned a “vast labyrinth” of shell companies from the Caribbean to the United Arab Emirates, it pinpointed offshore firms in Mauritius as having played a pivotal part.
