It is Tony who is thought to have the closest relationship with President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane, as evidenced by the fact that Tony was the first person who Duduzane phoned after getting into a car crash in 2014. Duduzane and Tony have shared directorships of several companies, including empowerment vehicle Mabengela Investments.

The #Guptaleaks emails suggest that Tony holds some unpleasant racial attitudes, having called security guards “monkeys” and having asked Sun City to confirm that all butlers used at his niece’s wedding would be white.

By 2016, Tony had reportedly already started spending more time in Dubai than South Africa. The family owns a house in the Emirates Hills estate. Tony is married to wife Arti.

A source familiar with the Guptas’ business associates says Essa first became acquainted with Rajesh “Tony” Gupta in 2011. The two soon became fast friends, and before long Essa and the Guptas, along with Duduzane Zuma, were exploring business opportunities together.

Other sources familiar with the Guptas have claimed that Essa acts as a proxy for the controversial family.

Essa, through his company Elgasolve, is the majority shareholder in VR Laser Services, a company that has come under fire over its work with state-owned arms manufacturer Denel. VR Laser’s other shareholders are Tony Gupta and Duduzane Zuma.

Through Elgasolve, Essa also holds a 22% stake in Tegeta Exploration and Resources, the Gupta-owned mining firm that bought the struggling Optimum Coal Mine from multinational Glencore.

In one of the first major #GuptaLeaks exposés, Essa was identified as the main role-player in a racket that could see kickbacks worth billions of rands from Transnet’s R50 billion tender for new locomotives being channeled to the Gupta lieutenant.

Trillian Capital Partners, a company majority-owned by Essa, has been in the spotlight over lucrative transaction advisory work it has performed for Eskom and Transnet.

Unlike his siblings, Ajay does not have South African citizenship, and has been living in the country on the status of a permanent resident since 2003. His brother Atul says Ajay is the brains of the family: “a genius, out-of-the-box thinker”, and that he will “cancel any meeting” to play cards with his ageing mother. It is Ajay who is believed to call the shots in the Guptas’ business empire, and Ajay who has the strongest interest in politics.

He is described on his company website as an “avid sports enthusiast”, and is married to Shivani. He has two sons, Surya and Kamal Singhala Gupta – the latter of whom is involved in Gupta businesses including VR Laser.

In 1993, a 25-year-old Atul was sent to South Africa by his father, Shiv Kumar Gupta, to come and explore business opportunities in a country that stood at the doorstep of democracy.

The young Gupta first dabbled in selling shoes before he began establishing a series of information technology (IT) firms. These IT businesses would later lead to the formation of the Sahara group of companies, one of the cornerstones of the Gupta business empire in South Africa.

According to Oakbay Investments’ website, Gupta obtained a BSc qualification from the Meerut University in India in 1989. After graduating and before moving abroad, the middle Gupta son worked at one of his father’s businesses in New Delhi.

Atul once served as chairman of Oakbay Resources and Energy, a holding company for many of the Guptas’ ventures. The company was listed on the JSE in 2014, but was booted from the bourse in 2017. Atul resigned as Oakbay chairperson and gave up his directorships in a string of other Gupta entities following the outcry over the Guptas’ influence in government affairs in 2016.

Gupta’s wife, Chetali, also acted as a director in some of the Guptas’ local businesses.