Reported by: Mithil Aggarwal

Gautam Adani rose from college dropout to become Asia’s richest man — but now he’s seen his empire rocked by a week of turmoil. 

The Indian tycoon has lost his title, and tens of billions in personal wealth, in a matter of days after a U.S.-based short-selling firm accused him of “the largest con in corporate history.”

Adani dismissed the allegations and accused the short-seller, Hindenburg, of a “calculated attack” on his country.

But the claims have triggered a meltdown for his company and sent shockwaves through the markets. 

On Thursday, Adani abandoned his flagship company’s planned stock offering as his conglomerate’s losses topped $100 billion, deepening concerns about a potential broader impact on India’s economy. 

Here’s what to know.

What are the accusations?

Hindenburg Research published a report on Jan. 24 saying the Adani Group, one of India’s biggest conglomerates, had “engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades.” 

The report was published days before the planned $2.5 billion share sale by Adani Enterprises, the conglomerate’s flagship company. 

In addition to accounting fraud, Hindenburg also accused the Adani Group of being involved in billions of dollars’ worth of “suspicious dealings with its chairman’s brother, Vinod Adani, and his labyrinth of offshore shell entities,” which it says the company used for stock manipulation.

Hindenburg has a track record of exposing alleged corporate wrongdoing while placing bets against these companies, a process also known as short selling. Hindenburg disclosed that it held short positions in Adani’s companies through assets traded in the United States and non-Indian-traded derivative instruments, which experts saidpositioned it to benefit from a drop in share prices. 

The report, which Hindenburg said was based on interviews with former executives and research from thousands of documents, raised concerns about high debt and the activities of top executives and concluded that seven of Adani’s companies were overvalued.

Read full report: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna68160