This administrative sleight of hand allowed the Guptas to import and employ foreign labour at the expense of local jobseekers, and conveniently sidestepped the onerous legal red tape meant to protect South African workers from being overlooked in favour of foreign employees.

Chawla was a key Gupta lieutenant and director of the now-bust Sahara Computers (Pty) Ltd (Sahara Computers), as well as its counterpart in India, Sahara Computer and Electronics Limited (SCEL).

Khosla was Chawla’s co-director at SES Technologies, another Indian company belonging to the Guptas. The #GuptaLeaks show how the pair abused their positions as directors to sign off on the dodgy contracts.

• READ: Second phase of Gupta naturalisation inquiry kicks off

Home Affairs

As Parliament’s home affairs committee last week heard officials explain the intricacies of the Gupta family’s dubious early naturalisation, it also emerged that scores of their non-South African employees were working locally using “intra-company transfer visas”.

Department of Home Affairs director general of immigration Jackson McKay told committee members in his written answers that none of the foreign employees employed by ANN7, or any other Gupta company, were working in South Africa using visitor or tourist visas.

Instead, these Indian nationals were issued with “intra-company transfer” permits. McKay told the committee that an earlier raid on the Gupta-owned television station found 31 Indian nationals working for ANN7 under such permits. A further nine were in South Africa using visitor’s permits, but only to attend meetings.

This means at least 40 foreign employees were working at ANN7 alone.

• READ: Home Affairs immigration head denies knowledge of Gupta visa ‘corruption’

In March this year, former ANN7 editor and Gupta-employee-turned-whistleblower Rajesh Sundaram published his book, Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV. In it, he tells of his turbulent months working for the Gupta family as they tried to get the fledgling television news station off the ground. He also directly implicates Chawla in circumventing visa requirements.

“I had heard his (Chawla’s) name mentioned for the first time when I was asked to apply for my temporary residence permit under the intra-company transfer process before I left India for South Africa,” Sundaram wrote.

Sundaram tells of how an Indian executive of one of the main shareholders of Infinity Media, ANN7’s holding company, lamented the difficulties in obtaining a work visa for foreigners in South Africa.

“It can take months to get a South African work permit. It is a cumbersome process. We have to advertise the position in South African newspapers and then wait for six months, after which we provide evidence that we have not found a suitable local candidate. Only then can we start the process of getting a work permit. Even so, if there is an official who does not agree, the request for a work permit can still be rejected.”

But they had a plan.

• READ: Exclusive: Ex-editor reveals Jacob Zuma’s role in creating ANN7

“But Ashu-ji (Chawla) is a genius, and he has found a way around it. We will show the visas of people going to work in South Africa as intra-company transfer. Just fill in the visa form, get police and medical clearance and get back to my office. My office will issue papers certifying that you are an employee of Essel Media being transferred to South Africa.”

Later in the book, Sundaram asked the same Indian executive a question that hinted at how the operation worked:

“But all the people I have recruited to be the core team to launch ANN7 have got contracts from Infinity Media [in South Africa] and not Essel Media [in India]. They have never worked for Essel Media. I hope this is not illegal?”

Legal hoops

The Immigration Act, 2002, and its regulations require a South African business seeking to employ a foreign national to first jump through a plethora of legal hoops before the foreign employee can take up work in a local business.

Björn van Niekerk, operations director for Intergate Immigration, told News24 that a local employer needs to consider South African applicants for the position first.

“An employer intending to employ a foreigner is required to confirm that that they have first made a reasonable effort to find, interview and consider South African applicants for the position that is required to be filled. The employer must confirm that:

• they have conducted a diligent search for a suitable South African candidate;
• they were unable to find a suitable South African with the relevant skills, experience, etc.

The lengths to which the employer went to advertise the position nationally, how many South Africans were interviewed, and why the South African candidates interviewed were not considered would all be taken into account.

“These efforts are assessed by the Department of Labour which will offer a recommendation based on whether they consider the need for a foreigner to be employed, over any potential South African, to be justified. The applicant also needs to have their qualifications assessed and evaluated by SAQA (South African Qualifications Authority).”

These requirements are meant to protect South African jobseekers, and to prevent employers from simply shipping in cheap labour from overseas to do jobs local citizens can perform.

But the Gupta family found a way to circumvent these requirements.

• READ: Rajesh Sundaram: MultiChoice, ANN7 and the president’s stick

Intra-company transfers

By claiming that the applications were for “inter-company transfer visas” instead of “general work visas”, Chawla and his Sahara Computers only needed to show that these employees had been in the service of one of their Indian sister companies for a period of at least six months.

They did this by falsifying and backdating the Indian employment contracts struck with these workers.

The fraud was trivialised because Chawla was also the director of the Indian companies creating the forged records, as well as the South African Sahara Computers that employed them locally. The same occurred between Essel Media and Infinity Media, where the directors of the two companies arranged employment contracts for ANN7 staff from India.

Karan Singh

The documents and emails contained in the #GuptaLeaks shed some light on the logistics of the scheme. Between October 15 and December 15, 2014, 22-year old Karan Singh visited South Africa from his home country of India on the invitation of Sahara Computers and Chawla. He was later joined by his parents and sister: Sunil, Sunita and Vidushi Yadav were also invited by Sahara Computers on tourist visas from December 4 to 10, 2014.

The invitation letter to Singh’s parents claimed that Singh was an intern at Sahara Computers. This is despite a tourist visa prohibiting a foreigner from being employed in the country while issued with such a visa.

During his time in South Africa, Singh also met with Jitendra Tiwari, the human resources professional for Sahara Computers. Tiwari was responsible for the majority of the employment agreements between the foreign employees and Sahara, and the #GuptaLeaks show he was involved with most of the visa applications contained therein. Flight bookings contained in the #GuptaLeaks show that Tiwari accompanied Singh and his family on a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town and back between December 8 and 10, 2014.

On December 16, 2014, the day after their return to India, Chawla forwarded Singh’s passport to Tiwari, who responded with a draft employment contract between Singh and South African Sahara Computers, appointing him as a “project manager” from January 12, 2015.

Shortly afterwards, Chawla sent an email to Khosla, a fellow director at SES Technologies in India, containing the passport of Singh.

“Please send me an appointment letter in SES for about eight months before as a project manager and I am doing inter-company transfer for him (sic).”

Khosla responded within hours, attaching a backdated appointment letter stating that Singh was appointed as a project manager at SES Technologies. SES Technologies is an Indian company of which Chawla and Khosla were co-directors.

Although the letter was backdated to May 16, 2014, the pair made a mistake. Singh’s commencement date with SES Technologies would only be on July 21, 2014, an error that was picked up on by the South African consulate. They refused Singh his visa on the basis that he had not been employed with SES Technologies for long enough, and on January 11, 2015, Singh wrote to Chawla:

“I will submit [my visa application] tomorrow. They had rejected the application before because the letter [you] had send earlier had date of joining as 21 July 2014, so [they rejected] it as it was not completing 6 months. Will submit it again tomorrow attaching the letter u had again sent me showing 21 May 2014 as the joining date for 6 months in India. Hope the embassy will not complain for the change in date (sic).”

The consulate didn’t complain, and Singh obtained his visa. He landed at OR Tambo International Airport on February 8, 2015. Two days later – on February 10, 2015 – Singh sent Chawla an email containing a scan of his passport and work permit, proudly displaying the words “intra-company transfer permit”.

• READ: ANC, ministers threatened Standard Bank to force it to keep Gupta accounts open, state capture commission hears 

Esheetaa Gupta

A second example originated late in March of 2014. Chawla received an email from Mr Sanjeev Gupta, enclosing his daughter Esheetaa’s resume and payslip for April 2014. Sanjeev Gupta, while unrelated to brothers Tony, Atul and Ajay, was closely connected with the Bank of Baroda’s chief executive officer in South Africa, Murari Lal Sharma. So close, in fact, that Esheetaa Gupta’s resume used Sharma’s mobile number as her South African contact number.

Esheetaa Gupta, an intellectual property lawyer working for a Wipro Technologies in India, was seemingly keen to secure work in South Africa.

On April 4, 2014, Chawla forwarded Esheetaa Gupta’s passport, CV and payslip to his secretary. Later that same day, she scanned and forwarded a bundle of documents signed by Chawla.

Among these was an employment agreement between Sahara Computers and Esheetaa Gupta, confirming she would be appointed as an “IP analyst” from May 15, 2014. It contained a letter from Sahara Computers to the South African consulate, stating the following:

“This letter serves to confirm that Ms Esheetaa Gupta will be transferred from SES Technologies to Sahara Computers (Pty) Ltd for a period of 24 months. This transfer qualifies as an intra-company transfer since these companies form part of the same global group. Esheetaa Gupta holds a foreign contract of employment with SES Technologies in India.”

It also contained a letter dated April 4, 2014, to the South African consulate (erroneously referred to as an “embassy”) from SES Technologies, the same company used to fabricate the employment contract for Singh. The letter from SES Technologies was also signed by Chawla and contained an exact copy of the paragraph confirming that Esheetaa Gupta was employed by SES Technologies.

These documents were sent to Esheetaa Gupta’s father on the same day. Esheetaa Gupta responded to Chawla on May 8, 2014, requesting additional documents, and in particular she required a “job offer letter from Indian company provided earlier at the time of employment”.

• READ: How the Guptas made money while being unbankable

A comedy of errors and mistakes followed, as Chawla and his secretary compiled the documents requested by Esheetaa Gupta.

The pair could not keep their story straight. Suddenly, the employment confirmation letters and backdated employment offer, previously done on the SES Technologies letterhead, resurfaced sporting SCEL letterheads, Sahara Computer’s sister company in India.

The initial set of documents also claimed that Esheetaa Gupta had started working for SCEL as an IP analyst in 2010, a peculiar oddity considering that her resume claimed that she only began working in the intellectual property field a full year and a half later, in June of 2011. Her resume stated that at the time she was employed as a project trainee at Nucleus Software Exports Limited.

The final backdated employment offer sent to Esheetaa Gupta had a more reasonable commencement date of June 27, 2013, although this still does not explain why Esheetaa Gupta’s resume sent to Chawla in April 2014 does not mention either SES Technologies or SCEL in either her employment history or references.

It also does not explain how she obtained a payslip for April 2014 as an employee of Wipro Technologies, if she was an employee of either SCEL or SES Technologies at the time.

Comment requested

Both Esheetaa Gupta and Karan Singh were sent detailed questions regarding these allegations. They were asked to confirm their employment history with either SES Technologies or SCEL, and the reasons for the subsequent intra company transfers.

Despite follow-up requests, neither Singh nor Gupta have responded to our requests for comment.

Khosla was also requested to provide comment on the evidence contained in the #GuptaLeaks but did not respond to our questions.

Questions were also emailed and sent via WhatsApp to both Chawla and his wife, Harsh Chawla. No response has been forthcoming.

It appears that the company’s management has followed the example set by the controversial Gupta brothers and bolted for India. Mediosa recently made headlines, following revelations that the North West government had paid the medical technology company R30m in advance. Mediosa was also providing similar services in the Free State.

This was before Mediosa conducted any work for either province. “Yesterday we did not get paid and there was no communication whatsoever from management regarding not being paid,” Mediosa employee Noxolo Majola told News24.

“We called the lab and the staff said Dr Vijay Balani has gone back to India. We are now worried that all of them will run away to India and leave us hanging.”

Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) records show Mediosa Health is managed by Indian nationals Sundeep Kalsi and Inish Merchant.

Staff claim both are out of the country and have not communicated with staff regarding the payment of their salaries.

Yesterday, the SABC reported that the Kalsi’s personal assistant told them that “Kalsi isn’t here, we clossing(sic)”.

Majola also claims that the head of human resources, Nalika Jugwanth, has been avoiding their calls.

Suman Kar, who is apparently running the business in the absence of Inish Merchant, has also failed to communicate with employees.

Clear relationship

The Gupta Leaks emails show a clear relationship between the Guptas, Mediosa and its directors.

The first semblance of what would become Mediosa is contained in an email from Sunil Sachdeva, sent on May 9, 2015 to Tony Gupta.

Attached to the mail is a PDF titled “Doctors on Wheels” which details plans for a “mobile medical unit” closely resembling Mediosa’s operations.

Anita Roy was the author of the document. Roy followed this up with a document titled “MOU-Free State” on June 2, 2015. Curiously though, the draft agreement was between an Indian company called Cureva Pvt Ltd, and the Free State Department of Health. Sachdeva is a director of Cureva India.

The MOU (memorandum of understanding) contained a clause stating “[Cureva India] requests The State to use its domain expertise in Legal and Regulatory subjects to facilitate the sourcing of the equipment from outside of South Africa and more particularly from India.

“[Cureva] also requests the State to streamline the process of manpower entry into the State from India and elsewhere for the duration of the mobile facility, subject to the accreditation and registration of the manpower in India by appropriate authority, and provided that such an entry shall be specific to the contract/agreement with the State.”

Mediosa’s management has links to the Guptas and several Indian-based companies. (Graphic: Jean le Roux.)

Cureva India was literally asking the Free State provincial government to pay it to procure goods, services and employees from India. In July 2015, the Guptas purchased a shelf company called Dinovert (Pty) Ltd.

Roy and Sunil Kumar were initially appointed as the directors of Dinovert.

Dinovert changed its name to Cureva (Pty) Ltd, and eventually to Mediosa Health (Pty) Ltd in late 2017. Roy was so inspired by her role in Mediosa that she penned a blog post on LinkedIn about her experience.

Over time, the directorship of Dinovert changed. Notably though, former Minister of Mineral Resources Mosebenzi Zwane’s special advisor Kubentheran Moodley was appointed as a director from August 25, 2015 until June 12, 2017.

Both Zwane and Moodley have links to the Guptas through the Optimum Coal Mine. At present, Inish Merchant and Sundeep Kalsi are the directors of Mediosa Health.

In early February, Merchant told City Press reporters that “there is no connection at all” between himself, Mediosa and the Gupta family.

READ: Gupta friends in state’s health pie

But the Gupta Leaks contradicts this claim.

On June 15, 2015, Ashu Chawla was requested to provide a visa invitation letter for Merchant’s visit to South Africa.

Chawla cleared this with Tony Gupta, and on June 17, 2015 a letter was sent to the South African High Commission in New Delhi.

Sporting a Sahara Computers logo, it requested the High Commission to issue a business visa for Merchant.

A similar letter dated 4rd (sic) February 2016 is also contained in the Gupta Leaks emails.

Both letters indicated that Merchant would be staying in Saxonwold Drive for the duration of his stay.

Indian companies Dinovert’s sole shareholder was a company called SAS Global Services Limited, a Dubai-based company.

In a previous investigation, News24 reporters were unable to find any physical presence of the company in Dubai.

Staff at the 39-story office block listed as its address had never heard of SAS Global.

READ: Dubai: the Guptas’ city of shells

But Indian company records show Sundeep Kalsi is a director of several companies, including SAS Infrabuild, SAS Servizio, SAS Infotech and SAS Heights.

In the majority of these companies, Sunil Sachdeva, the Cureva India director, is Kalsi’s co-director. Company records also show that Cureva India’s contact email is “sas@sasgroup.in”.

A company called Ramsons Projects ties all of this together. Sachdeva and Kalsi are two of the directors of the company. Ramsons’ 2016/2017 Annual Report listed Roy is a director of the firm, and between Sachdeva’s and his companies, he controls 45% of the shareholding.

Ramsons’ business address is the same as the one used to register the sasgroup.in domain name, used in Cureva India’s email contact.

Goodbye

On Friday, Minister of Health Dr Aaron Motsoaledi called on the North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo to sack the province’s health department head, describing Mediosa as an ATM used to loot from the state.

None of this will reassure the employees of Mediosa that they will be paid.

Management informed staff they would be paid on March 6 at the earliest, but this was before the apparent abscondment of the firm’s management.

Payment troubles have haunted Gupta-linked companies in recent weeks. Staff at the Optimum mine in Mpumalanga downed tools last week after not being paid on time.

The mining company is one of eight companies with ties to the Guptas that initiated business rescue proceedings last week. Staff at The New Age and ANN7 were also paid late this month. Management of the media companies ascribed the delays to a “payment glitch”.

The Guptas sold the media companies to Mzwanele Manyi’s Lodidox last year in a vendor financed arrangement.

The Guptas are well known for their alleged role in state capture in South Africa. But the #GuptaLeaks show how Gupta lieutenants allegedly went about capturing an Indian aviation company.

Heritage Aviation is an Indian aviation company with no apparent direct links to the Guptas or South Africa. The company was formed in 2009, operating mostly chartered pilgrimage and temple tours from a small helipad in the unfortunately named town of Guptkashi.

But the leaked Gupta emails show how its sole director, Rohit Mathur, was duped, browbeaten and eventually strong-armed into giving up control of Heritage to the Guptas.

– See the GuptaLeaks site

A fiddling enterprise

To set the scene, we take a step back. Last year, News24 journalists Pieter-Louis Myburgh and Angelique Serrao attempted to crack open the City of Shells. Tellingly, it was what they didn’t find in Dubai that was of significance: of the six Gupta associated companies linked to Dubai, only one, Griphon Line Trading, had an actual office. And even that office appeared permanently closed.

Dubai is a low-disclosure jurisdiction, which means obtaining official records of company shareholding and directorships is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

One of the shell companies News24 journalists could not find in Dubai was Fidelity Enterprises Ltd. Fidelity was traced, using information in the #GuptaLeaks, to Al Quoz, an industrial district in the western reaches of the city. There the trail went cold among the dusty warehouses: locals had never heard of Fidelity, nor did they have any idea where its business address was.

READ: Dubai: the Guptas’ city of shells

Except for a brief mention in Oakbay Resources and Energy’s pre-listing documentation, no apparent links exist between the businessmen from the rural town of Saharanpur and Fidelity.

Until the #GuptaLeaks.

Fidelity is first mentioned in the #GuptaLeaks in a string of dodgy transactions between Gupta-linked companies starting June 1, 2011. SES Technologies (SES), another Gupta-linked company based in India, transferred US$400 000 to Fidelity, with the payment confirmation sent to Ashu Chawla. Chawla was a director of SES at the time and a known Gupta lieutenant. On February 15, 2018, Chawla appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on charges relating to the Estina dairy farm, where millions in state funds intended for developing emerging farmers were funnelled to the Guptas.

A relationship between Fidelity and the Guptas could also be witnessed in several other transactions. A US$1m payment was made to Oakbay Investments on March 5, 2014. An unsigned loan agreement was sent to Gupta lieutenant Ronica Ragavan’s JIC Mining email address. In the agreement Fidelity undertook to lend $15m to an as-yet-to-be-identified borrower. It is clear from the #GuptaLeaks that service providers were frequently requested to invoice Fidelity for trips undertaken by the Gupta brothers.

In February 2012, Gupta-owned Sahara Computers paid Fidelity US$1m for “software”. A few days later Sahara paid another US$180 000 into Fidelity’s dollar account, as well as EUR320 000. Considering the exchange rate at the time, Sahara paid Fidelity at least R12.2m in February 2012 alone.

Not bad for a business without an address.

Pre-flight inspection

Fidelity’s lofty aviation aspirations took off in mid-2014. On June 6, 2014, Fidelity sent a letter of interest to Green Lane Capital Corporation. This expressed Fidelity’s interest in purchasing a 2005 Agusta A109E helicopter.

While Fidelity had an aircraft, it still needed an operator in India licensed to use the helicopter over there.

Heritage Aviation, headquartered in India, had previously managed another aircraft on behalf of Sahara Computers. Sahara leased its Beechcraft King Air B300 (bearing registration number VT-ACD) airplane to Indian company Air Charter Services. Heritage was without a licence at the time, and was mainly responsible for the logistical arrangements around the aircraft.

After obtaining its own licence in May 2014, Heritage Aviation’s Mathur requested Ajay Gupta “to kindly give me an opportunity about the lease of aircraft to my company so that I can start the procedure in DGCA (director-general of civil aviation) immediately”. The director-general of civil aviation supplied a no-objection letter to Heritage Aviation on October 9, 2014, giving it the green light to operate.

The problem was simple: Fidelity had the aircraft, but needed an operator in India; Heritage had an operator licence, but needed aircraft to fly. Their solution was to have Fidelity lease its aircraft to Heritage, thereby securing Fidelity an income while allowing Heritage to pocket any profit it made after the cost of the lease was accounted for. Heritage would fly charter services, charging wealthy individuals for the privilege of private flights.

Fidelity was greedy: as a foreign company, Fidelity would be taxed 25% of the lease revenue in terms of Indian tax legislation. Its tax obligations could be reduced to only 10% if the transactions were funnelled through a permanent account number (PAN) member. As Suresh Tuteja, former chief financial officer of Sahara Systems in South Africa, pointed out in correspondence to Chawla, Fidelity either had to apply for a PAN itself, or make use of another entity that was already a PAN member.

On October 16, 2014, Gupta lawyer Martinus van der Merwe, of the firm Van der Merwe and Associates, supplied Chawla with a new lease agreement between Fidelity, Heritage and Islandsite Investments 180. This appears to be an attempt to structure the agreement as per Tuteja’s instructions. Islandsite is a Gupta investment holding company, and owns, among others, the Guptas’ Sahara building in Midrand and the family’s R17m Constantia compound in Cape Town.

READ: The Guptas’ Saxonwold-lite home in Cape Town seems to be heavy on water

The plan was abandoned when it became clear that Islandsite would be in the same position as Fidelity in terms of its tax obligations, and that Heritage had already informed aviation authorities that the aircraft would be leased from Fidelity.

The deal was decidedly global. The seller was in the United States. The buyer, a company in Dubai, managed from South Africa. An operator was waiting in India, eager to take on the helicopter waiting in Rio de Janeiro. The contractual wrangling between Green Lane Capital, various brokers, Fidelity and eventually Heritage was facilitated by the Guptas’ lawyers in South Africa at the time.

Headwinds

Heritage’s Mathur attempted to negotiate better terms for himself and his company in respect of the lease agreement.

His attempts were shut down by Chawla and Tuteja. On November 24, 2014, Tuteja drafted an email to Mathur on behalf of Chawla.

“I am really surprised to receive your mail in which you mentioned that you need below mentioned amendments in the signed agreement which you have already signed and received from FEL (Fidelity). Now once the helicopter is in transit you need the amendment in agreement without any reason for it.”

Fidelity and Heritage finalised the lease agreement on Chawla and Tuteja’s terms on January 20, 2015. Heritage would lease the aircraft for 20 million rupees per annum, payable in quarterly instalments of 5 million rupees. This equated to R3.6m per year, payable in quarterly instalments.

Turbulence

At around the time that Mathur signed the lease agreement for the Agusta helicopter, Chawla and Tuteja were engaging Airbus Helicopters to purchase another two aircraft. On February 21, 2018, Airbus invoiced Fidelity Enterprises for two Airbus AS350 B3e helicopters. The purchase price for the aircraft was just short of R51m and R2.5m was paid to Airbus on February 23, 2015, securing the brace of aircraft.

The legal vetting was once again undertaken by the Guptas’ attorney, Van der Merwe. Mathur’s Heritage Aviation was approached to lease the aircraft, and the deal was finally concluded on March 5, 2015.

On March 7, 2015, Mathur once again attempted to negotiate better terms in respect of the lease agreement between Fidelity and Heritage.

“I don’t want to make any commitment to you which becomes difficult for us to honour. I am also providing first 50 hours as absolutely free of flying charges. Therefore Rs 2.5 Crores (25 million rupees) lease will be too much for my company and so I will sincerely request you agree to my suggestion,” he pleaded.

Chawla and Tuteja pushed ahead remorselessly.

At the same time, Chawla and Tuteja arranged for Heritage to take over the lease of Sahara Computer’s Hawker Beechcraft Beechjet 400XP for another 7.5 million rupees per annum.

The aircraft was transferred from Lanseria’s Execujet (using registration number ZS-POT) to Heritage Aircraft (using registration VT-HBX). Heritage entered into a lease agreement with Sahara Computers at 7.5 million rupees per annum. The transfer was concluded in mid-2015.

The final lease agreements saw Heritage coughing up US$400 000 to lease each of the two B3s, 5 million rupees per year for the Agusta and another 7.5 million rupees per year to lease the Beechcraft. Heritage had been bound to a total annual obligation of almost R25m per year towards the Guptas.

Brace for impact

Between November 2014 and June 2015, Fidelity engaged Heritage with a view to establish a joint venture between the two companies. It made business sense: Fidelity had planes, and Heritage had the licence needed to operate in India the planes it had leased from Fidelity.

From correspondence in the #GuptaLeaks, it is established that Heritage insisted on a 50/50 partnership. Ajay Gupta, Chawla and Tuteja were however pushing Mathur to settle for a 51/49 partnership in their favour, in essence giving them control over Heritage. On April 6, 2015, a final joint venture agreement was sent to Mathur. He appears to grudgingly agree to the 51/49 ownership.

It is unclear if the joint venture went ahead. But on September 12, 2015, Heritage hit turbulence.

In a letter dated September 11, 2015, addressed to Heritage, Fidelity informed Heritage it was in breach of the lease agreements it signed. Fidelity required Heritage to pay 15 million rupees and US$400 000 in terms of the first and second lease agreements respectively, within three days. Should Heritage fail to pay, Fidelity would terminate the lease agreements and inform the DGCA, resulting in a termination of Heritage’s operating licence. Heritage had to find a way to pay nearly R9m within three days, or lose everything upon cancellation of the leases.

Four days later Tuteja and Naresh Khosla, a former employee of Sahara Computers in India, met with Mathur, and attempted to convince him to hand over his financial control of Heritage to Tuteja. Mathur would only be allowed to keep operational powers.

“Tuteja ji also… threatened in a subtle way that if I don’t agree to his suggestion, bosses will take a decision on closing the operation,” Mathur confided to Chawla later that day. Chawla promptly forwarded the message to Tuteja.

“When we were discussing final points of JV [joint venture] with Ajay Sir around 22 April you were also on the phone line. Ajay Sir told me that I must agree for giving 51% stake to Sahara and in return all management rights will always remain with me. I am very eager to understand why after 1 – 2 months of getting NSOP (operator permit) I am being pressured to give away financial powers. Why there is a drastic change in your stand?” The response and eventual agreement reached with Mathur is not clear.

It was a case of Heritage needing Fidelity’s aircraft more than Fidelity needed Heritage to operate them. While Fidelity could easily lease its aircraft to another operator, Heritage was entirely dependent on Fidelity’s aircraft for its income. Heritage could either agree to the Guptas’ demands, or stand to lose its sole means of generating revenue while still owing millions to Fidelity.

Disarm doors and crosscheck

Less than two months later, Indian company records show Mukul Tekchandani was appointed as a director of Heritage Aviation. Tekchandani is also a director of SES Technologies, a company directed by Chawla’s wife, Harsh.

In the weeks following his appointment, Tekchendani sends weekly financial reports and cash flow statements to Chawla. Mathur’s correspondence dwindles and is limited to operational matters – pilot’s salaries, maintenance expenses and insurance costs for the company.

Mathur is still listed as the contact person for Heritage Aviation. As of February 1, 2018, aviation records show that Heritage sports an additional two Airbus Helicopters EC130 helicopters that have been added to the fleet, as well as the Beechcraft B300 that Mathur used to manage on Sahara’s behalf. This brings the operator’s fleet to a total of five helicopters and two airplanes.

Despite requests for comment, neither Mathur nor Chawla responded. Detailed questions to Van der Merwe and Associates were also not responded to.

It remains unclear exactly how much money the Guptas have allegedly ferreted out of the country. The web of shell companies, opaque shareholding and the Gupta’s use of their lieutenants make tracking down their companies difficult. But if their conduct in Heritage Aviation is anything to go by, millions of state funds could already be locked away in entities without any clear links to the Guptas.

In March this year, Indian revenue authorities raided several of the Gupta brothers’ properties on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.

The temple was among these properties.

SPECIAL REPORT: Gupta Leaks

Despite the Guptas themselves footing the bill for the construction of the temple, a local Indian politician, Mansoor Badar, and Sanjay Grover, a known Gupta lieutenant in Dubai, were used as the “donors” of the money earmarked for the temple’s construction.

In this multi-part investigation, we consider how the Gupta family laundered money using companies set up in Dubai and India, freeing them up to fund the temple’s construction.

First stop: Saharanpur

Construction started on the Shiva Dham temple, located in the northern outskirts of the Gupta brothers’ hometown of Saharanpur, in June 2014. The temple complex consists of several buildings, including the main temple itself, and a hall designed by architectural firm Trivedi Corporation in India.

The temple was still under construction in January this year.

And while documents in the Gupta leaks claim that Badar and Grover are the sole funders of the temple’s construction, at least a portion of the donations were bankrolled by the Guptas themselves, making fools of Indian revenue authorities in the process.

To get the money into India, the Guptas needed a plan. The Gupta leaks show that Tony Gupta expressed an interest in establishing the family’s own religious trust early in 2014. The Guptas also discussed ways of transferring money out of the country with their auditors at the time, KPMG.

“We also note there is a desire to investigate the feasibility of transferring funds off-shore, especially to India, to be utilised as religious donations (as part of funding to build the temple in the vicinity of your home town in India) as well as for business purposes,” wrote Muhammad Saloojee, director and head of corporate tax at KPMG, on June 30, 2014.

ALSO READ: Guptas dodge another tax deadline

Between June 2014 and December 2014, the family appeared to have abandoned establishing their own trust and focused on using an existing religious trust instead. The Gupta leaks show that the temple’s construction was overseen and paid for by an entity called Sh Siv Mandir Gor Sankar Vishwana Banunth Dham & Samsa Bumi Prabndak Saba (the Siv Mandir trust), a religious trust founded in 1990. The Siv Mandir trust was responsible for paying service providers and labourers for the construction of the temple.

The reasoning behind using a trust was economic: in terms of Indian tax laws, a religious trust can apply for favourable treatment of its own income as well as any donations made by its funders.

On December 10, 2014, Atul and Tony Gupta drafted a letter on behalf of their mother, the Gupta matriarch Angoori Gupta. The letter begged the Indian revenue authorities to grant the Siv Mandir trust exemptions from certain tax regimes.

Atul Gupta and his mother Angoori at the laying of the temple foundation stone. (www.shivadham.in)

“This temple is being constructed at the total project cost of Rs 100 Crores (about R180m), the donation for which will be contributed by all individual persons in Saharanpur and [a] major portion of this donation will come from Smt Angoori Devi Gupta and her family members and friends from all over the world.

“Trust has also applied for Income Tax Exemptions u/s 12 A of [Income] Tax Act and will also apply for exemption u/s 80 G of Income Tax Act. Once these exemptions are granted by the appropriate authority’s donation [sic] from all across the world will start flowing in.”

The letter was addressed to the tourism minister in Uttar Pradesh, the province of the Guptas’ hometown of Saharanpur, appealing to the minister to intervene with the tax authorities.

The letter makes it clear that the Guptas intended funding the construction of the temple using donations from their “friends and family”.

With a tax efficient and opaque trust set up to receive its donations, the Guptas could begin funding it.

Funnelling the funds

The Gupta leaks show that the temple had two intended sources of income. The first funder was Badar, a municipal councillor in Saharanpur. Badar was earmarked to provide Rs 23 million (rupees) towards the construction of the temple.

As part of the donation, Badar was required to submit a letter containing very specific wording to the revenue authorities. The accountant for the family’s businesses in India, Ashok Khandelwal, drafted an example of the letter to be used.

Khandelwal initially denied any role in the funding of the temple construction.

“Without going into the merits of your allegations, we have absolutely nothing to do with the so-called Temple construction with which you are trying to associate our name,” he wrote in an email.

“We would have no problems if you were publishing the truth, but publishing false stories without any facts should not be done. If you have any evidence, of our involvement in this, kindly share the details of the same with us before publishing the story in order for us to respond, because your inference of the information, if any, that you have seems to be absolutely wrong.”

ALSO READ: Gupta fight goes to Dubai

Khandelwal failed to respond when confronted with a copy of the donation letter he drafted. He also failed to clarify why he drafted the letter under instructions from Gupta family associates if the donor was Badar, an apparently unrelated party. Instead, Khandelwal threatened legal action on the basis of defamation and blackmail in response to the questions posed.

Badar’s motivation appears to have been political. In December 2014, Gupta lieutenant Ashu Chawla received two letters introducing Badar to the leader of a local political organisation. The letters, which had to be translated, introduce Badar to the leader of the Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav, and propose Badar as an ideal candidate for the elections to be held the following year.

Both Yadav and Badar also attended the Gupta family’s infamous Waterkloof wedding in 2013. Attempts to reach either Yadav or Badar for comment have been met with no response.

But Badar was not about to use his own money to fund the temple, and this is where the laundromat kicked in. The Gupta leaks indicate how it worked.

The laundering cycle used to fund Mansoor Badar his donations to the temple trust. (Graphic: Jean le Roux and Jaco Grobbelaar)

By making several back-to-back payments, the true source of the funding would be hidden behind several layers of transactions. All of these companies are either under the direct control of Gupta family members, or their close associates.

The next day the cycle is repeated. ITJ Retails pays LCR Investments, who in turn pays Anil Gupta. Anil Gupta arranges for the funds to be transferred by unknown means to Badar, who in turn pays ITJ Retails.

This cycle was repeated for several days until about Rs 21 million was paid towards ITJ Retails by Badar.

But the trick lies herein: Badar never paid ITJ Retails. By skipping the last link in the chain, Badar would in effect “borrow” the money from ITJ Retails by not paying it over. This was confirmed by the balance sheet for ITJ Retails, which showed that as at March 4, 2014, Badar was owed exactly Rs 23 million, the same amount contained in the planned budget for the temple.

The modus operandi becomes even clearer in another string of transactions or journal entries ordered a year later.

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On March 6, 2015, another Gupta lieutenant, Suresh Tuteja, again requested that several payments be reflected, either as transactions or journal entries in the books of the affected entities. Among these payments was Rs 17.6 million that Akash Khandelwal, the accountant-on-call for the Guptas, was to receive from “Sanjay ji”. This presumably referred to Sanjay Grover, the former Gupta associate in Dubai.

This amount would then be transferred to ITJ Retails, who would in turn “repay” Badar the Rs 23 million he borrowed ITJ Retails. Badar would then make a Rs 23 million payment to “Temple”.

Akash Khandelwal denied that he received or made any such payments, but would not explain why these payment instructions would be made using his name as the recipient of the money to be paid to ITJ Retails.

The entries also showed that the “Temple” would in turn be used to settle a vehicle loan for the benefit of SES Technologies, another Gupta-linked company that will feature prominently in the next instalment.

We can now trace a trail from the temple trust to Badar and eventually LCR Investments and SES Technologies.

Going global

The source of the money received from LCR Investments and SES is a bit murkier. But the Gupta leaks show how these companies were used to launder money paid from several overseas sources.

The first of these sources were donations paid by the Gupta family from South Africa. In late 2013, Rajesh Gupta, his wife Aarti, and Atul’s wife, Shivani, each gifted R1m to their sister in India, Achlia.

Achlia Gupta is the sister of brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh, and is married to the same Anil Gupta mentioned above that provided Badar with the money to pay ITJ Retails. The donations made in late 2014 appear to have been made directly into Achlia’s account.

The donations made to Achlia would invariably find their way back into the LCR Investments and SES Technologies laundry cycle. Bank records for SES show that Achlia frequently made large deposits into its account, which were subsequently funnelled away. Achlia, and other members of the Gupta family, frequently made large unsecured loans to Gupta-linked companies, among them LCR Investments.

Payments made to LCR Investments by Gupta-owned companies in Dubai were a second source of foreign income. In 2014, Indian tax authorities queried the source of funds used to provide several unsecured loans provided by the family and its companies to LCR Investments during the previous financial year.

Anil, Achlia and Doon Leisure and Hospitality (an Indian company owned by the Guptas, previously known as Sahara Computers and Electronics) were queried in this matter.

In response, Achlia referred to a donation made to her by Shivani “out of her natural love and affection for me and the same has been accepted by me”.

Yet this heart-warming gesture of charity was not paid directly to Achlia. Instead, the money was paid from her sister’s Bank of Baroda account into that of the Dubai-based Global Corporation LLC. Global Corporation would in turn pay this into the bank account of LCR Investments, again funding the cycle.

ALSO READ: Dubai: the Guptas’ city of shells

Global Corporation was one several Gupta-linked shelf companies that a News24 investigation last year was unable to track down, despite journalists spending a week in Dubai.

A third source of funds was direct payments from the Guptas’ Dubai-based companies. An elaborate example of the way the money is laundered is found in the Gupta leaks, and involves several companies that the Guptas have direct control over.

This launder process will be delved into in the next instalment of Pillars of Sand, as well as its links to the family’s Dubai operations.

Since submitting our enquiries to the affected parties, the temple’s website has been taken down. Archived versions of the website can be found here and here.

OVERVIEW: The laundry cycle used to fund the Gupta temple in India. (Graphic: Jean le Roux and Jaco Grobbelaar)

Even the deputy president’s office was fair game. Investigations show they zeroed in on some of the nation’s most sensitively placed staff, including the head of the Presidential Protection Service as well as Zuma’s chief of staff, his private secretary and a chief director in the deputy president’s office.

In certain instances, some of these officials appear to have returned favours, potentially subverting their positions in the Union Buildings for the Guptas’ benefit.

The fact that Saxonwold’s most influential family attempted to recruit people close to the president raises questions about the nature of their relationship with Zuma: were they trying to spy on him? Or were they putting in place a back channel allowing him to communicate with them via trusted intermediaries?

Since the #GuptaLeaks provide mere glimpses of these relationships, only the president, the Gupta brothers and the officials in question know the whole truth. The four officials we feature here have all denied impropriety or said they carried out their duties with professionalism.

One official, however, said she would “be more vigilant and judicious in professional relationships” in future. The Presidency and the Guptas did not respond to detailed questions.

Major-General Muzingaye Mxolisi Dladla: head of Presidential Protection Service (2010-date) and long-time bodyguard to Zuma

As the Scorpions anti-corruption unit were raiding Zuma’s Johannesburg home in August 2005, two vehicles screeched to a halt outside the gates. Out poured several automatic rifle-toting members of the elite Presidential Protection Unit.

A tense armed stand-off ensued between Zuma’s protectors and his would-be prosecutors. Zuma – then a private citizen – was entitled to protection by this elite South African Police Service unit, who guard the country’s current and former presidents and deputy presidents together with their families.

Among the protectors who rushed to Zuma’s side that day was Dladla.

Ever since then, their fortunes have closely tracked one another. Zuma escaped the corruption charges and became president; Dladla rose rapidly through the police ranks to head the Presidential Protection Service, as it is now called. Both are controversial figures.

Zuma’s indiscretions are well known, but Dladla escaped attempted murder charges in 2010 after he was accused of spraying three Uzi submachine gun rounds at an elderly motorist in Durban who got in the way of Zuma’s blue light cavalcade.

Zuma paid tribute to Dladla at a funeral in 2011, thanking him and other members of the so-called Echo Squad for standing by him during his darkest days in politics, including thwarting an alleged assassination attempt when he was deputy president.

The relationship has only grown closer: investigative magazine Noseweek alleged in 2012 that Dladla commanded a secret spy unit within the protection service, tasked with monitoring Zuma’s rivals and ensuring his re-election as ANC president.

It now appears that Zuma’s friends, the Guptas, became equally enamoured of Dladla – and rewarded him for his specialist services.

An early clue of their relationship includes an August 2010 email chain from the #GuptaLeaks showing that a Sahara sister company intended to send Dladla and his then wife, long-serving Presidency official Mogotladi “Mo” Mogano (see below) on a weekend getaway to the Maldives.

Both Dladla and Mogano told us they never travelled to the Maldives, with Mogano confirming that “whilst Sahara did make an offer, my then partner and I did not receive tickets and did not undertake the offered travel”.

However, the emails indicate that Gupta executive Ashu Chawla went as far as requesting a Johannesburg travel agent to “issue and email me the [air] ticket” for the couple, quoted at R9 290 per person on Emirates.

A source, who asked not to be named for their own safety, told us that the Guptas at one stage prepared documents transferring legal ownership to Dladla, but then the property burned down.

A second source in the Presidency independently recalled how a house where Mogano was living with Dladla in 2010-11 had burned down.

Mogano referred our queries about the property to Dladla, who claimed that his company never traded but remained silent on the circumstances in which he appears to have made extensive use of a Gupta-owned property.

What use did the Guptas make of their connections with Dladla? An unsigned 2013 affidavit unearthed in the #GuptaLeaks shows Tony Gupta explaining to the police how he procured VIP blue light escort services for the family’s wedding guests.

The Guptas were in trouble because the black BMW escort vehicles they used had been illegally fitted with blue lights and false number plates.

Gupta’s affidavit, submitted as part of the police investigation into the wedding debacle, makes the astonishing claim that the president’s top bodyguard was responsible for procuring the illegal VIP escort service.

Gupta states: “I requested General Dladla to advise me on road transport security under circumstances explained to him … where guests arrived at Waterkloof Air Force Base and had to travel by car through rural areas to Sun City.”

“I indicated that I would pay for these services without any reservation. I am aware of an initiative within the South African Police Service where members of the public can insist on protection/control services at a prescribed fee.

“General Dladla requested me to furnish him with information and inter alia the flight schedules of the guests,” Gupta states, after which Dladla appears to have taken care of the Guptas’ needs.

“On or about 30 April 2013, I noted certain protection vehicles and members of the SAPS accompanying the group of guests from Waterkloof … to Sun City. I did not find this awkward given the requests mentioned,” says Gupta.

“I expected an invoice from the SAPS for the services rendered … On or about 30 April 2013, I received an invoice from a company called S & M Transport … indicating a request for payment for an amount in excess of R500 000. I did not expect an invoice from S&M Transport and I do not know who S&M Transport is. I further do not know who Salomie Manamela is and I had no arrangement with the aforesaid person to send me an invoice for ‘escort services’.”

Gupta, who was in serious trouble at the time, may have been playing dumb but the identity of S&M Transport and Manamela remains a mystery.

But that was the end of the matter: there is no mention of the company or Dladla’s alleged role in securing its services in the inquiry’s final report.

Responding to our questions, Dladla flatly contradicted Gupta, saying he played no part in “any logistic arrangements either at Sun City or at Waterkloof Air Base”.

However, he confirmed that he “provided an affidavit to SAPS which set out the facts as part of an investigation which was held”. This investigation’s findings have never been made public, but all indications are that both Dladla and Gupta wriggled off the hook.

Like a cat with nine lives – again, mirroring his boss, Zuma – there is one final similarity. Michael Hulley, Zuma’s private legal advisor, prepared Dladla’s responses to our questions.

Denying that he had been captured by the Guptas, or acted to further their interests, Dladla said: “I have performed my duties in relation to President Zuma as a member of SAPS with the discipline and professionalism that it deserves.”

Lakela Kaunda: deputy director-general and head of private office of the president (2009-); chief operating officer in the Presidency (2014-)

Lakela Kaunda is Zuma’s fiercely loyal chief of staff, who has worked beside him in various roles since the mid-1990s.

Emailed diary appointments contained in the #GuptaLeaks show Rajesh “Tony” Gupta accepting a flurry of diary appointments with Kaunda on four occasions between 11 December 2012 and 31 January 2013.

On the fourth occasion Kaunda met Gupta, the email calendar shows a “Bruce” attending – a possible reference to Bruce Koloane, the then chief director of state protocol.

Kaunda’s own meetings with Gupta shortly before this raise questions about her role in the Waterkloof landing debacle.

Koloane was subsequently forced to resign for her role in facilitating the Gupta wedding plane landing at Waterkloof air base, and several military officers who approved the landing later testified they believed instructions had emanated from “Number One” – a codename for Zuma.

Kaunda does not dispute the meetings with Gupta, only that Koloane was not present.

He could not be contacted to verify this. Kaunda also denied playing a role in facilitating the Guptas’ aircraft landing needs, saying, “I actually discovered about the wedding landing at Waterkloof when Radio 702 broke the story on the day of the landing itself. I was totally unaware of it before then.”

Be this as it may, the Guptas were keen at this point to do business with Kaunda. Between the third and fourth successive meetings, as scheduled in Gupta’s email calendar, Kaunda ceded her 100% share in Ntomb’nkulu Investments CC to her son, Siphesihle.

She then forwarded confirmation of the new shareholding to Gupta on 23 January, stating that “we will use this vehicle”.

Asked why she had ceded her shares to her son, and for what activity would Ntomb’nkulu be a “vehicle”, Kaunda repeated the explanation she had given to the Sunday Times in June: “I initially thought of closing down the company as I was not using it, but then felt it would be cost effective to keep as it already existed and we had paid for the establishment. I then decided to cede it to my son,” she said.

“When they [the Guptas] said they wanted to offer a business opportunity and asked if I had a company that could be utilised, I then sent that email about Ntomb’nkulu … the offer of going into business with the family was declined and the matter was never pursued.”

At the time, Islandsite 255’s joint directors were Tony Gupta and Zuma’s son, Duduzane. Islandsite 255 is Gupta-controlled Oakbay Resources and Energy’s BEE partner in Shiva Uranium.

In response, Kaunda said: “It is the first time actually that I hear of that cession of the shares or that resolution. Ntomb’nkulu Investments does not own shares in any company whatsoever.”

Dixie Investments, the company meant to cede the shares to Ntomb’nkulu, retained its stake. For now, at least, the public will have to take Kaunda’s denials on trust.

Delsey Sithole: private secretary in the private office of the president (2009-2012); director: events and protocol in the Presidency (2012 to date)

Zuma’s private secretary coordinates both his official and private diaries, and so knows what the president is doing when his formal duties are over for the day.

It is a unique special position of trust and responsibility, which entails liaising with the president’s security detail after hours to ensure he is safe.

The president’s private secretary is also a regular traveller as part of the president’s delegation on overseas trips. The woman Zuma entrusted with the task at the outset of his Presidency, Delsey Sithole, was very soon in the Guptas’ crosshairs.

Financial reconciliation records from the #GuptaLeaks indicate that Sithole received cash amounts totalling R8 310.78 from a Gupta company in June 2009, just a month after Zuma became president.

It is not known what the payment was for, and Sithole did not provide any clarification in her response to our detailed questions.

Fast-forward a year, Gupta brother Rajesh invited Sithole and her teenage son to watch the opening match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

A spreadsheet contained in the #GuptaLeaks shows that Sithole found herself amidst illustrious company in the luxurious Sahara suite in the iconic Soccer City calabash. Her inclusion hints at the development of a special relationship with the Guptas.

The family’s other guests for the match included India’s wealthiest businessman Mukesh Ambani and his family, as well as one of Zuma’s wives, his son Edward, and some of Zuma’s most trusted spies – the head of police crime intelligence, Richard Mdluli and his sidekick Nkosana “Killer” Ximba.

Sithole did not dispute her presence that day, telling us that, “I received many offers of hospitality from various companies during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.”

Fast-forward another two years, to early May 2013, and Sithole publicly displayed her loyalty to the Guptas. Despite the outpouring of public anger about the family’s brazen takeover of Waterkloof military air base to land a planeload of overseas wedding guests, Sithole crowed on her Facebook page: “Its [sic] good to be at Sun City. Some people are being tjatjarag [over-excited]. I am enjoying the wedding.”

By this stage, Sithole had been removed from her position as private secretary and redeployed to head the events and protocol division in the Presidency.

A source in the Presidency recalled a “security incident” involving Zuma’s diary that had occurred in 2011, after which Sithole was moved.

Details about the incident, including a rumour that the Guptas had accessed confidential details about Zuma’s diary via Sithole, could not be independently verified.

Sithole did not respond to the allegation specifically, but said: “In my previous capacity as private secretary, I interacted with various stakeholders on a number of occasions, involving various activities and my interaction with the Gupta family was in that capacity. Such interaction never promoted any unethical activity.”

She added that her move to protocol and events happened at her request, for “career growth and advancement” reasons.

But even after she moved out of Zuma’s private office, the #GuptaLeaks suggest that Sithole and Tony Gupta retained ties. For example, in September 2012, Sithole sent him the guest list for a Jacob Zuma Foundation fundraising dinner. The list includes a number of prominent Nigerian businessmen with investments in South Africa.

How Sithole obtained this it is unclear, as are her motives for disclosing it. Was she moonlighting on social events for Zuma’s private foundation and leaking intelligence to the Guptas about Zuma’s would-be private benefactors?

Sithole did not provide any answers.

The #GuptaLeaks emails show Tony Gupta accepting a diary appointment with one “Delicy Sithole” at Sahara’s Midrand offices in January 2013. Notably, this meeting was scheduled around the time of a flurry of meetings between Gupta and Kaunda (Sithole’s former boss in Zuma’s private office).

Sithole did not dispute that the meeting took place as scheduled.

A few days after this meeting, Sithole sent Chawla a CV for one Phatse Justice Piitso – a former SACP provincial secretary in Limpopo and South African ambassador to Cuba between 2009 and 2011 – requesting that Chawla “please forward to Tony”.

Again, Sithole is silent on the purpose of her email. As for Piitso, he was – or was soon to be – Sithole’s husband. Sithole told us that she sent the CV “in good faith to a stakeholder and acquaintance [Gupta] and there was never an encouragement of untoward expectations”.

Piitso said that he has sent his CV to many people, but denied that he got “any employment from the Gupta family or anything else from Mr Tony Gupta”. However, Piitso has cropped up recently as a pro-Gupta commentator.

In 2016, Bell Pottinger spin doctor Victoria Geoghegan shared Piitso’s name with a MoneyWeb journalist, as part of a list of “people who had agreed to talk on economic apartheid”.

The Guptas had hired the London-based PR firm on a monthly £100 000-plus (R1.5m-plus) contract, aimed at distracting public attention from the family’s murky business dealings.

Other pro-Gupta commentators and luminaries on the Bell Pottinger list included Andile Mngxitama, Ben Ngubane, Kebby Maphatsoe, Tshepo Kgadima and Lindiwe Zulu.

Earlier in 2017, Piitso also penned an eloquent defence of Brian Molefe, who had been exposed by the public protector as one of the Guptas’ accomplices in the nexus of state capture.

Piitso lavished praise on the former Eskom chief executive – then on his way to Parliament as an MP – calling him “one of the finest young leaders our movement has ever produced”.

In language that has become synonymous with pro-Gupta lobby, Piitso urged Molefe to “take forward the revolutionary programme of the second phase of our transition for radical transformation”.

Piitso ignored our question about his inclusion in the Bell Pottinger list, but said: “The revolutionary concept of white monopoly capital is not an invention of the Gupta family. It is a concept which seeks to define the development of monopoly imperialism and its characteristic features within the South African realities.

Throughout my life, I have written so many views about this important theoretical question and I will continue to do so.”

Piitso added that he did not seek compensation for his written work from any media houses.

Mogotladi “Mo” Mogano: assistant private secretary to the president (pre-2009); chief director in office of the deputy president (post-2009)

Mogano has worked in the Presidency for more than a decade, initially as assistant private secretary to Thabo Mbeki.

When Kgalema Motlanthe became president in September 2008, he inherited her services.

After Zuma succeeded Motlanthe, Mogano moved to the deputy president’s office with him, where she remains under Cyril Ramaphosa.

Because she has been ensconced in the office of Zuma’s main political rivals down the years, whilst married to one of Zuma’s most trusted bodyguards, Mogano’s relationship with the Guptas is worth highlighting. (See Muzingaye Mxolisi Dladla, above.)

Mogano can be linked to the Guptas since at least February 2009, when company registration records show that she became a co-director with Tony Gupta and Zuma’s son Duduzane in Karibu Hospitality.

The company became dormant in 2011 and was deregistered in 2013. Mogano said “nothing came of the venture,” adding that “I resigned before any business could be conducted or any trading could take place.”

We have already seen that a Sahara sister company booked return flights to the Maldives in 2010 for Mogano and her then-husband, the head of the Presidential Protection Service Muzingaye Mxolisi Dladla. Both have denied receiving the gift.

The couple also appears to have lived for a while in a Gupta-owned property, about which Mogano referred our query to Dladla, who in turn ignored it.

A source in the Presidency told us several years ago that Mogano had also “flirted with” a job offer from the Guptas, a tip-off that appears to be borne out by a June 2011 email from the #GuptaLeaks in which Mogano sends her “comprehensive resume” to Tony Gupta.

What job Mogano was applying for remains a mystery – she told us “there was no outcome” and she remains gainfully employed in the Presidency.

Mogano confirmed her attendance, with a friend, after her husband dropped out. She added that she had declared the hospitality as a gift in her annual declaration of interests. Mogano now appears keen to dissociate herself from the Guptas and Dladla, from whom she says she separated three years ago.

She concedes: “With concerns of state capture and as valid as they are, I do accept that such associations can raise doubts about one’s professionalism and loyalty to the public service code of conduct.”

But she argued that she joined the Presidency “with the full desire to serve the country and not personalities” and had maintained her top security clearance throughout her decade in service.

“I have not allowed my association with elements of the Gupta family enterprise to influence my work adversely or unethically, but have also learnt from recent events to be more vigilant and judicious in professional relationships,” she said.

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In such situations, it helps to have rich friends. Enter the Guptas. Emails from the #GuptaLeaks trove show that the Guptas picked up the R850,000 bill from the MKMVA’s 2010 national general council, with the money deposited straight into the MKMVA’s bank account.

In August 2010, the personal assistant of MKMVA Treasurer-General Sparks Motseki emailed Gupta lieutenant Ashu Chawla: “Kindly receive the MKMVA banking details as discussed with the Treasurer-General, Comrade Sparks Motseki.”

Attached to the email was an invoice for R850,855.40, for conference facilities, accommodation and food for four days at the Booysens Hotel and Conference Centre, south of Johannesburg. Included in the bill was a “gala dinner” totaling R45,500.

The emails do not record a direct response from Chawla, but the evidence shows that the bill was promptly paid. On August 19, 2010, Motseki’s PA emailed Chawla: “This serves to acknowledge the receipt of the sum of R850,000.00 transferred yesterday the 18th of August 2010 to MKMVA Pfumo account.”

Separately, the Gupta emails also confirm, as reported by Mail & Guardian in 2011, that MKMVA was given shares in the Guptas’ companies. An affidavit from 4 July 2014, signed by the MKMVA’s Thembile Magingxa, states that MKMVA was issued shares in the Guptas’ Islandsite Investments in 2011. MKMVA leader Kebby Maphatsoe was also invited to the Guptas’ controversial 2013 Sun City wedding.

The Guptas’ support of MKMVA leadership has not gone unreciprocated. MKMVA’s Maphatsoe has been a staunch public defender of the family in exchange, repeatedly chalking criticisms of the Guptas up to racism and xenophobia. In 2016, when the heat around the family was starting to rise, Maphatsoe described the Guptas as “friends of MKMVA” and said that the military veterans would defend them from unfair attack.

When news broke from the #GuptaLeaks emails that the Gupta family had helped the MKMVA with drafting media statements, Maphatsoe confirmed that the organisation had a “relationship” with the Guptas but denied that this extended to media assistance. MKMVA further rubbished reports that it had received media aid from British PR company Bell Pottinger, calling such allegations racist and insulting.

The emails show, however, that in July 2016 the MKMVA put out a statement defending the Guptas.

The statement was circulated among the Guptas’ media team, and in response Nick Lambert from Bell Pottinger wrote: “Many thanks – more excellent messaging on our behalf and, most importantly, using statistics to accompany the rhetoric.”

MKMVA leadership has also gone to some lengths to cast doubt on the authenticity of the #GuptaLeaks emails. MKMVA NEC member Carl Niehaus complained in an op-ed carried by the Independent group of newspapers on Monday that the GuptaLeaks reports were being released “in a closely co-ordinated and deliberately dragged-out process” to confirm mainstream media’s “particular narrative of state capture”.

Niehaus wrote: “At this stage there is no way to know whether all the emails that have up to now been released, or some, or any of them are authentic. The manner in which they have been obtained evidently does not make for obvious authentication, and one surely cannot expect from the hackers and the reporters – who obviously have a vested interest to claim they are authentic – to police themselves.”

Contacted by Scorpio on Monday, however, Maphatsoe coolly acknowledged the Guptas’ R850,000 payment in 2010 to the MKMVA.

“Some of these emails are true, like this R850,000 MKMVA event,” Maphatsoe said. “If my memory serves me well, it was for the national general council, and we requested funds from many people. We appreciated it. It’s not a crime to be assisted. It’s not corruption there.” He said that the donations were made “in good faith”.

Maphatsoe added: “Our relationship with the Guptas is not something we have been hiding.”

But the specifics of what the Guptas were funding may indeed have been hidden.

Omry Makgoale, an MK vet who has been openly critical of Maphatsoe and his fellow MKMVA leaders, told Scorpio: “We were not aware that [the Guptas] funded that conference. We thought that maybe [MKMVA leadership] got money from the Department of Military Veterans. We didn’t know, but we are not surprised.”

Makgoale is part of a group of dissident MKMVA members who are taking Maphatsoe and his cronies to court over what he says has been continued looting of the MKMVA trust.

“We know that the Guptas have been funding Kebby Maphatsoe and [former Treasurer-General] Sparks Motseki, all these guys. About five years ago we did a presentation for MK comrades showing how the Guptas are linked [to MKMVA].”

Makgoale put it bluntly: “MKMVA is captured by the Guptas. They funded them, and from there tell them what to do. MKMVA is colonised by the Guptas the same way that President Zuma is.”

In Makgoale’s view, the major utility of the MKMVA to the Guptas lies in the group being instructed to support the Guptas’ preferred presidential candidate.

The MKMVA does not have voting rights at the ANC’s electoral conference in December, but they still hold some sway at a branch level. The veterans have made it clear that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is their choice for South Africa’s next candidate.

“Most of our members are leaders of their branches,” Maphatsoe told the Mail & Guardian in June. “So we have our way of how to influence the African National Congress processes.”

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This amount relates to the Gupta-owned company’s sponsorship of the “Impi” team introduced during the 2011-12 T20 domestic competition in South Africa.

The Impi were drafted in as a short-lived seventh franchise during that season. At the time, reports suggested that the team was cobbled together haphazardly and sold as a “development” side.

The team was based at Willowmoore Park in Benoni which, at the time, was sponsored by the Gupta-owned company, Sahara.

The Impi lasted just one season, having lost 10 out of their 12 fixtures with the other two being wash-outs. CSA were quick to admit their failure on the pitch, but it seems now that there were some serious failures off it, too.

A CSA spokesperson told Scorpio that the money, pledged in sponsorship but never paid over, was written off after several attempts to recoup it failed.

But a failed team isn’t the only deal The New Age had a hand in.

The #GuptaLeaks further reveal that disgraced former CSA CEO Gerald Majola lobbied the Department of Sport and Recreation for “sponsorship” to the tune of R10-million for the second edition of The New AgeFriendship Cup, held in 2012.

The Friendship Cup was a one-off T20 match between South Africa and India, with the first edition in 2011 being marred by accusations it was partly used as a political platform for the ANC.

The second and last edition was held on 30 March 2012, by which time Majola had already been suspended for his role in accepting an undeclared bonus from the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The emails do not show whether the R10-million was ever actually paid and both CSA and then Minister of Sport and Recreation, Fikile Mbalula, say it wasn’t.

The department’s official financial records also show that an amount of R981,000 was transferred to CSA in the 2011-12 financial year.

Mbalula told Scorpio that he “fired” Majola, seemingly referring to the commission of inquiry he instigated against him following the IPL bonus scandal.

But Majola’s brazenness in lobbying for such big amounts of money, all while under investigation, is startling.

E-mails show that on 15 February 2012, Max Fuzani, then special adviser to Mbalula, sent an email to Majola saying: “The Minister have given us the go-ahead to organise this Cricket SA Game with India. We must meet urgently to discuss this matter.”

A few days later, on the afternoon of 20 February 2012, Majola sent a reply to Fuzani, saying: “The purpose of my mail is to formally accept the offer made by the Department of Sport and Recreation after our telephone discussions at 16H00 on 20 February 2012 which is outlined below.

“In bringing the President of the Republic of South Africa’s request on 9 January 2011 to fruition, the Dept of Sport & Recreation shall assist Cricket South Africa host a T20 friendly match between the Proteas and the Indian National Cricket team on 30 of March 2012.

– The friendly match will be followed by a music concert

– The Department of Sport & Recreation shall financially contribute R10-million to Cricket SA to perform the activities mention above.

In order to expedite the process, I kindly request that you insert the attached draft letter on your letterhead, sign and return via email to me at your earliest convenience. Please make the necessary amendments as you deem fit.”

The letter referred to in the emails detailed all the arrangements set out in the email.

Fuzani responded saying that Mbalula could not commit to the budget of the department and that the responsibility rested with Director-General, Alec Moemi.

Fuzani reiterated that the “the Minister agreed in principle to support the event” but added that further documentation “delineating roles of all the stakeholders involved in this important tournament” needed to be provided before there could be sign-off.

Mbalula told Scorpio he does not recall ever being approached about funding.

Majola denied any involvement and referred further queries back to Cricket South Africa.

A formal invitation from Majola’s former PA, inviting President Jacob Zuma to the match, was later forwarded to Ashu Chawla after it was sent to the President’s office.

Almost all of Majola’s communication with the department was also passed on to Nazeem Howa, then CEO of The New Age and to Atul Gupta.

Present at the T20 at the Wanderers in March were a number of high-ranking politicians, including President Jacob Zuma and his son Duduzane. The Presidency even proudly posted a video of the event on their YouTube channel.

How exactly the event was paid for still remains unclear. The Indian National team does not just get on a plane and agree to play a one-off vanity T20 some 8,000km away from home.

CSA say that The New Age paid R500,000 and an “allocation of advertising” for naming rights to the event and an “allocation for advertising” in the paper.

Acting CSA CEO at the time, Jacques Faul, said he had always questioned “the business sense” in the agreement.

Considering the exposure such a T20 received, R500,000 is an astonishingly low figure for such an event and sources have previously claimed that Majola presented no budgets to CSA’s FinCo at the time, but the CSA claims that this was done.

Keep in mind that the exchanges between the department and Majola requesting funding only took place a little over a month before the match was played.

It raises some serious questions over CSA’s governance at the time as well as other deals done under Majola’s reign.

By the time the match actually took place, however, Majola had already been suspended by the CSA for his part in the IPL saga, which saw the 2009 Indian league matches being played in South Africa.

Majola was suspended and later fired for failing to declare to CSA a R1.4-million bonus he negotiated on the side with the IPL.

But even after leaving the CSA, Majola seemingly maintained a relationship with the Guptas. The emails show he often emailed the family with “business opportunities”, including a coal mine and “push to talk” technology. The emails do not reveal if any of these ever came to fruition.

He later travelled, seemingly on the Guptas’ account, to Sachin Tendulkar’s final Test in Mumbai in November 2013 and was invited to the wedding of Varun and Tanvi Gupta in Jaipur – an invitation Majola accepted but later cancelled.

In 2014, a curious email was sent to Ajay Gupta. It was sent from Thando Booi at Border Cricket to Majola and then on to Ajay Gupta with the message: “Please receive a copy of the Warriors/Chevrolet sponsorship agreement which you are offered from 1 May 2015 together with stadium naming rights of both St George’s Park in PE and Buffalo Park in EL which can both be offered immediately.”

The contract that was attached contains all the details of an agreement between the teams and General Motors, signed in 2013. Nothing came of it, but it does raise some questions as to why Majola, somebody who had been suspended for being economical with the truth, would have acted as a middleman between the Guptas and Border cricket. Majola did not respond to our request for comment on the matter.

None of this comes as a surprise, though. The Guptas were central to the IPL being relocated to South Africa in 2009 and have a close relationship with former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi.

Modi is still being sought by the Indian Enforcement Directorate for alleged money laundering and other offences flowing from his early stewardship of the IPL.

In 2010 he fled to London, where he has up until now successfully fended off Indian extradition efforts.

Gary Naidoo, the Guptas’ spokesperson, did not respond to our request for comment.

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The tracking of prominent politicians and businesspeople, along with the sourcing of sensitive information from well-placed moles in key state entities, appear to show that the Gupta business network operated like a fully-fledged spy agency.

Malema, Manuel flight details

Buried among the thousands of emails and documents that make up the #GuptaLeaks is an Excel spreadsheet that wouldn’t necessarily draw attention in a sea of files with far more interesting names.

Document “As1.xlsx” sounds like a dull affair compared to those bearing titles such as “Zwane questoins” (sic), “Bribery Culture of India”, or “Right now WET!!”.

But the file’s contents reveal a disturbing reality – Ashu Chawla, one of the Guptas’ most trusted lieutenants, had been privy to the dates of international flights taken by some of the Guptas’ most prominent adversaries, including EFF leader Julius Malema and former finance minister Trevor Manuel.

The document also features the international flight details and ID numbers of Absa CEO Maria Ramos and those of a handful of so-called “white monopoly capital” business leaders.

FirstRand Group chairperson Laurie Dippenaar and the banking group’s co-founder GT Ferreira are among the “WMC” businessmen whose travel details are captured in the file.

Malema this week confirmed to News24 that the ID number listed in the document alongside the initial “JM” is his and that he had flown out of and back to South Africa on the six occasions in 2015 listed in the spreadsheet.

The EFF leader claims that the information could only have come from the department of home affairs (DHA) or from the State Security Agency (SSA). Malema vowed to take up the matter with the office of the Inspector General of Intelligence (IGI).

Dippenaar, Manuel and Ramos also confirmed the authenticity of their ID numbers and the flight dates listed under their names.

“It is deeply concerning to us that this private information appears to have been collected and stored by a third party for reasons unknown to us. This is an egregious breach of privacy and amounts to criminal conduct,” Manuel and Ramos said in a joint statement.

“We are considering the legal options available to us,” the couple added.

The #GuptaLeaks has thus far offered no further clues as to how Chawla – who according to the file’s metadata was the original creator of the Excel document – got hold of the travel information.

But the trove of documents contains plenty of unrelated material that proves the Guptas and their henchmen have been fed sensitive government information by an array of individuals in the public sector, including confidential SSA documents.

* Read the emails here.

Moles in home affairs

Towards the end of November 2015, department of home affairs (DHA) employee Gonasgaren “Sagie” Mudley emailed his resume directly to Tony Gupta.

This marked the start of a chain of communication that would see Mudley’s CV being forwarded by Chawla to none other than Thamsanqa Msomi, a Denel board member and then DHA minister Malusi Gigaba’s adviser.

“Kindly find attached a copy of my Resume and note that I have just been vetted by SSA for Top Security Clearance and awaiting evaluation. If you require any further information and clarity please don’t hesitate to call me,” Mudley wrote Gupta.

According to the email, the DHA employee was an assistant director at the department’s immigration inspectorate in Cape Town. His earlier positions, as listed in his CV, make for interesting reading.

From 1989 to 2000, Mudley was a member of the South African Police Services’ (SAPS) narcotics bureau in Durban, where he maintained “strong networks and liaison with intelligence agencies,” according to his resume.

He then had a stint as a SAPS representative at South Africa’s embassy in Namibia, where he was involved in the “management of crime intelligence information emanating from foreign agencies”, before he became the commander of the police’s crime intelligence unit in Bellville, Cape Town.

In his latter position, Mudley played a role in the “coordination of all overt & covert special projects & operations,” he claimed in his CV.

In January 2016, the SSA gave Mudley a top secret security clearance, the highest possible security clearance in South Africa. He wasted no time in forwarding the clearance, which in itself is a confidential SSA document, to Tony Gupta.

“Dear sir. Please find attached security clearance,” Mudley wrote to Gupta.

Gareth Newham, a governance expert at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), says the mere fact that Mudley forwarded his top secret clearance to Gupta constitutes a criminal offence.

“It is against the law to forward a confidential SSA document to someone who does not have a security clearance,” says Newham.

Even more concerning is the fact that Mudley, with his brand new top secret clearance, would theoretically have had access to highly sensitive government information that could have benefitted the Guptas.

“A top secret clearance would give one access to a range of sensitive information pertaining to government planning, including procurement planning. Mudley could therefore have gotten access to the records of top secret or confidential discussions around things like the proposed nuclear build program or the procurement of new locomotives,” says Newham.

In February 2016, Mudley forwarded what appears to be a cellphone picture of a DHA document titled “Criteria for Prioritisation of Vacant Posts” to Tony Gupta.

“Please find attached new financial instructions for Dha staff also might have negative implications on foreign posts. This meeting is taking place at this moment,” Mudley told Gupta in the email.

It was just before this exchange, in January, that Chawla forwarded Mudley’s CV to Msomi, adviser to then DHA minister Malusi Gigaba.

What the Guptas and Chawla intended to do with Mudley’s CV, and why Chawla later forwarded it to Msomi, remains unclear.

Gupta associate Chawla also maintained communications with another DHA official, one Gideon Christians, over a period of at least two years, the #GuptaLeaks show.

According to Christians’ CV, which he sent to Chawla in November 2014, the DHA official was the department’s assistant director for immigration services at the Cape Town International airport.

In October 2015, Christians forwarded Chawla a string of emails detailing a spat involving several other DHA officials over Christians’ would-be transfer to the South African high commission in India.

“Bhiysa [brother]. Someone sent this to me unofficially . . . seems there is a fight with HR and FOC [foreign office coordination] to issue the [transfer] letter to me,” Christians wrote Chawla.

Apart from keeping the Gupta associate up to date on his pending transfer, Christians also gifted Chawla with a particularly chunky piece of government intelligence in the form of an Excel spreadsheet.

The document, titled “Foreign Missions Budget 2014-2015 edited”, details the names of 51 South African officials posted to diplomatic missions in countries such as Angola, India, China and the United Kingdom.

Apart from the officials’ names and personnel numbers, the document also provides a detailed breakdown of each official’s salary, their child and education allowances, and what their annual rental costs amount to.

Again, the #GuptaLeaks offers no further clues as to what the Guptas would have wanted to do with this document.

But the website of the department of international relations and cooperation (Dirco) suggests that Christians did end up being transferred to India. According to the website, a GC Christians is currently the first secretary for immigration and civic affairs at the South African high commission in New Delhi.

Agents Koloane and Koko

The Guptas and their associates’ interactions with the DHA officials brings to mind the manner in which the likes of former Dirco official Bruce Koloane and former Eskom executive Matshela Koko were covertly doing the Guptas’ bidding.

An earlier #GupteLeaks report detailed how Koko, or at least someone using his name in their Yahoo account, forwarded a confidential correspondence between Eskom and one of the Guptas’ rival mining outfits to two unidentified email addresses. The confidential Eskom document ended up being forwarded to Chawla.

Emails and documents in the #GuptaLeaks show how Koloane forwarded information on the Waterkloof Air Force Base to Chawla, in the run-up to the highly publicized Gupta wedding at Sun City in 2013.

Christians and Mudley did not respond to request for comment via WhatsApp.

The Guptas’ lawyer, Gert van der Merwe, referred News24 to Oakbay Investments, Gary Naidoo and Ronica Ragivan. None of them responded to our queries.

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Haranath Ghosh’s LinkedIn profile lists him as head of sales and marketing for Infinity Media Networks, the media arm of the Guptas’ business which includes TV station ANN7 and newspaper The New Age.

But he has also held another job, serving as the Gupta family spokesperson on occasions in the past when Gupta actions have required spinning.

Evidence from the #GuptaLeaks emails shows, however, that it was not just the Guptas that Ghosh composed statements for. On at least one occasion, Ghosh also fabricated tweets to be sent out via the Guptas’ army of fake bots.

In September 2015, former Business Day editor Peter Bruce penned a column for the Sunday Times questioning President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane’s close relationship with the Gupta family.

The Guptas evidently felt that the charges warranted rebutting.

The #GuptaLeaks emails show that erstwhile The New Age publisher and then Oakbay CEO Nazeem Howa was roped in to compose a letter to be sent to Sunday Times editor Phylicia Oppelt for publication under Duduzane Zuma’s name.

“In my culture I have been taught to be respectful of my elders, so let me start with apologising in advance for taking issue with you and your columnist Peter Bruce for the almost defamatory references to me in his column on Sunday,” the letter begins.

“I know I am a young man, who grew up on the streets of Maputo, Lusaka and Harare before the fall of apartheid, so I am not as well-schooled as either of your good selves in customary business etiquette.”

It proceeds to complain: “Mr Bruce refers to me in the column almost as if I am a commodity that was traded for favours, claiming that I was enriched by the Guptas in order to ‘help’ our president.”

As amaBhungane and Scorpio previously reported, this statement of victimhood is richly ironic given that it was literally written by a Gupta henchman on behalf of Zuma junior.

But the letter alone was clearly not considered enough. What needed to accompany the letter was a flurry of tweets drawing attention to it and expressing support for both Duduzane Zuma and the Guptas.

Enter Haranash Ghosh.

In an email sent to the Guptas’ top brass – among others, Oakbay CEO Ronica Ragavan, Sahara CEO Ashu Chawla and Howa – Ghosh writes on 25 September 2015: “Attached suggested tweets which can be tweaked & tweeted in the social media”.

In the document attached to the email, Ghosh has listed proposed tweets to be broadcast – presumably from the Guptas’ collection of fake Twitter accounts.

The tweets were as follows:

• Good to see Duduzane come out and speak in his defence: Media can be ruthless on young black entrepreneurs Peter Bruce must apologise
• Dudu shd sue this bruce chap : so many innuendos in one article: is it not personal vendetta?
• In our media eyes all successful blacks are corrupt and immoral #sundaytimesfail
• If Guptas are immigrants then all jews are also immigrants: Peter bruce is spreading poison here
• This article by Peter Bruce borders on the line of Xenophobia: Dudu Zuma should demand apology
• Peter Bruce makes sweeping statements in this article- he also knows President hasn’t met guptas after waterkloof- Age catching up with him
• Guptas created over 7000 jobs and stay invested in our country…what is P Bruce’s claim to fame.
• After Duduzane’s response Sunday Times should apologise in their paper-nothing was true in the article.

The race-baiting tone of the fake tweets is doubly questionable if one considers the evidence to emerge from the #GuptaLeaks emails that the Guptas themselves appear to hold some racist, anti-black sentiments.

There is no sign that any of the tweets ended up being used in the direct form that Ghosh proposed, but the hashtag #sundaytimesfail was employed on numerous occasions by one of the Gupta sockpuppet accounts, @luiz_judy.

It remains to be uncovered just how extensive the Gupta network of fake social media accounts was – or is. The casual tone of Ghosh’s email suggests, however, that the use of fabricated tweets to undermine opponents and bolster support for the Guptas may have been routine.

Ghosh failed to respond to a request for comment before deadline.

Gupta lawyer and regular spokesperson Gert van der Merwe has refused to comment on #GuptaLeaks claims, saying: “I have no documents or context or instructions. It is inappropriate.”

Read more: In the non-surprise of the year, WMCLEAKS.com smear campaign tracked to a Gupta associate

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Much has been written about Malusi Gigaba’s time as Home Affairs Minister. Particularly how a senior Gupta employee, Ashu Chawla, repeatedly asked officials to fast-track visas to benefit Gupta businesses. Now further leaks show that these officials were pulling favours even before he took up the post.

The Gupta family’s love for cricket is well known. Their company, Sahara, had key sponsorships at a number of South Africa’s most loved cricket grounds. More details of their relationships with cricket officials will be revealed at a later stage.

But this particular incident is about more than cricket. It once again asks serious questions about the influence the family has been able to yield at a number of South Africa’s government institutions – and under whose watch it happened.

This story is about a senior official with an Indian Premier League (IPL) team who contacted Ajay Gupta directly when South Africa hosted the now defunct Champions League T20 in 2012.

The tournament that shifted from India to South Africa took place in May that year and the qualified teams knew months beforehand that they would need to follow due process.

Yet, it appears a gentleman by the name of Amrit Mathur, using a private email with a Delhi Daredevils signature, saw no need for such protocol – having friends in high places.

The only Amrit Mathur linked to the Delhi team is the COO.

On 17 October 2012, seven days before the Delhi Daredevils were due to play the Highveld Lions in the semi-finals of the tournament, he sent an email to Ajay saying: “Need your help to get a visa quickly for SA for the CLT 20. Can I get in touch with some official in the High Commission in Delhi ?” [sic]

The next day, Mathur also emailed Ronica Ragavan, who at the time was Oakbay’s financial director, saying: “Appreciate your help to expedite grant of visa.”

He adds: “I would ideally like to travel to South Africa night of Saturday 20th October. Let me know the way forward, specially if I have to contact someone in Delhi after you have put in a word. [sic]”

Chawla requested a few documents and within a couple of days Mathur’s visa was granted, with a note that it was ready for collection from “security at embassy not VFS”.
VFS is the intermediary for visa applications.

After his return from the Champions League, Mathur again emailed Ajay, thanking him for his assistance.

It is not clear from the email correspondence how the two know each other. However, the family did play a key role in bringing the IPL to South Africa in 2009. It seems Mathur knew that the Guptas had friends in high places.

These timelines paint a curious picture. The request was made just a few weeks after Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma abandoned her post as Minister of Home Affairs to take up the African Union job. Naledi Pandor was running the department at the time.

Scorpio contacted both Mathur and Gupta spokesperson Gary Nadioo to request comment. Neither responded.

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