When the Adanis responded on Thursday to the latest exposé of questionable funds flow into the stocks of four group firms, a curious reference in the very first paragraph stood out.

“We categorically reject these recycled allegations. These news reports appear to be yet another concerted bid by Soros-funded interests supported by a section of the foreign media to revive the meritless Hindenburg report,” the Adani group’s response to the reports in the London-based Financial Times and The Guardian had said.

The reference to George Soros, the Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist who funds progressive causes and who finds himself the subject of conspiracy theories floated by the political Right, was curious because it does not tell the full story.

Soros’s Open Society Foundations is not the only donor to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a network of investigative journalists that collaborated with the Financial Times and The Guardian to publish the new disclosures.

The OCCRP’s list of institutional donors includes the US state department, the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the ministry of Europe & foreign affairs of France, and the ministry of foreign affairs of Denmark. The donors are listed on the OCCRP’s website.

The donor list mentions government development agencies like USAID, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation. Entities like the German Marshall Fund, Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund are on the list.

Not one of these institutional donors — some representing countries — was mentioned in the Adanis’ statement.

Many who support the ruling establishment on social media used the Soros link to question the findings, perhaps hoping to draw attention to sobriquets like “The Man who Broke the Bank of England” that the billionaire earned during the 1992 currency crisis. They called the report on the Adanis “Soros-backed” when his Open Society Foundations is just one of 21 institutional donors to the Project.

Soros has been critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar had described Soros as “old, rich, opinionated and dangerous”.