amaBhungane and Scorpio

It must have been good news for Piyoosh Goyal when the State Bank of India approved his Rs750m (R120m then) loan.

So good that he then sent his agent to a senior banker’s Mumbai home on a Sunday with two expensive watches and a fistful of cash. At least, this is what the Mumbai branch of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) later claimed.

Their anti-corruption investigators had lain in wait, that November 2013, and they arrested Goyal’s alleged agent when he emerged from the banker’s home.

Then they raided the home where they said they found the two watches and the cash. Simultaneously, they raided Goyal’s premises, where they claimed to have found “incriminating documents”.

The investigators laid charges of bribery and collusion against Goyal, his alleged agent and the banker.

Find all you need to know about #GuptaLeaks here

According to Indian journalists, the investigators’ evidence included more than 70 hours of recorded conversations. They also interrogated Goyal’s agent for half a day.

Goyal’s Delhi-based scrap metal company, Worlds Window Impex India, issued a statement the next day denying the allegations.

The bank got two senior staffers to investigate. Within days, they cleared their colleague of wrongdoing.

But the CBI continued to investigate and, in January 2015, it filed a charge sheet with a Mumbai judge, a spokesperson told us.

“The matter is sub judice,” he said, meaning CBI would not comment as the case was still before court.

Goyal’s questionable Indian bank loan was just the tip of an iceberg.

In this article, we reveal that by the time CBI charged Goyal, he and Worlds Window had for four years helped the South African Guptas to move the equivalent of hundreds of millions of rand between China, India, SA and the UAE, using hundreds of suspicious transactions.

Devotee, entrepreneur

Goyal founded Worlds Window in Delhi in the 1990s. He was in his early 20s. Business people described him as a “first generation entrepreneur” and a “young and dynamic businessman”.

He started by importing and trading scrap metal. Then he expanded the group into logistics, manufacturing and – after he met the Guptas in 2010 – coal mining in SA.

In 2008, Britain’s biggest metal recycler, European Metal Recycling (EMR), bought a 49% Worlds Window stake from Goyal and other shareholders. EMR holds the stake to this day, and has regularly injected cash into the business (see story below: #GuptaLeaks: Liverpool company owns 49% of Indian firm implicated in kickback scheme).

EMR told us: “EMR is disturbed to hear press reports of the alleged involvement of Worlds Windows in money laundering, which we became aware of late last year through #GuptaLeaks. We are currently carefully looking at this investment as a consequence.”

SEE: The Guptas’ bogus Dubai businesses

Worlds Window has claimed to be one of India’s largest scrap importers; however its financials suggest it was a relatively modest operation.

In the financial year ending in March 2011, the group’s holding company, Worlds Window Impex India, bought scrap worth R1.7bn. This was about 5% of the total Indian imports at the time. It said it sold a little more than this and, after operating costs, was left with R57m.

We note these numbers because, as we shall see, they were small compared to the tide of money then washing between Goyal-linked companies and the Guptas.

Before the CBI bust, Goyal had kept a modest profile. He appeared on podiums and in a few puffy news pieces as the esteemed company executive. Otherwise, he occasionally graced the pages of International Society for Krishna Consciousness newsletters.

The society described him as a donor, “senior devotee” and the “midday meal director” for Sri Sri Radha Parthasarathi Temple’s feeding programme, in south Delhi.

^{Piyoosh Goyal, right.}

He told us that because he had resigned, he could not answer our questions on Worlds Window’s behalf.

Yet, analysts at an Indian credit agency still describe Goyal as Worlds Window’s promoter. His father stayed on after 2013 as “group mentor” and a “key person”, according to its website. And at least 41 Worlds Window companies remain registered to the address Goyal declared on his 2012 tax return.

Goyal gave us limited written comment for this article, and Worlds Window ignored us despite repeated attempts to elicit a response.

However, one man came forward to offer a spirited and detailed defence for them. He did not want to be named, so we shall call him Mr Patel.

Meeting the Zuptas

Mr Patel is a senior figure in Worlds Window.

He said Goyal first met the South African Guptas through a common friend in India in 2010. The Guptas then introduced Goyal to their business partner Duduzane Zuma, the president’s son.

They encouraged Goyal to invest in SA, telling him: “We have lots of mines, and you will not face any problem. We know everybody.”

Worlds Window quickly joined the “Zupta” party, it appeared.

An August 2010 accounting record from the #GuptaLeaks described that someone from Worlds Window spent more than Rs700 000 (about R100 000 then) on “SA… President’s Clothes (Cash)… India”. The Guptas later paid them back. Jacob Zuma had officially visited India two months earlier.

We asked Mr Patel if they had bought clothes for Zuma. He said: “I can remember cloth has been purchased for Zuma and his wife. There is chances payment made by us [sic]. Don’t remember exactly. It was more than eight or 10 sets for each.”

He added: “As I remember, president used Indian cloth in India, so assuming paid by Gupta as we never met president in India [sic].”

Jacob and Duduzane Zuma and the Guptas failed to reply to our questions. South African brother Atul Gupta previously told the BBC the #GuptaLeaks were fake.

That same month in 2010, Goyal and the Guptas did one of their first big deals.

WATCH: Inside the controversial Gupta Free State dairy farm

It was dressed up as Worlds Window investing in two South African coal mines, but it appeared to be a sham, as we previously reported.

In the deal, a subsidiary of Worlds Window Impex India, the group’s flagship, transferred $4.43m (R31.5m then) to the Guptas’ Oakbay Investments in SA.

That was a lot of money for Worlds Window Impex; in fact, it was more than half of its operating profit for that year, so you would expect its subsidiary would have placed a reasonably sure bet.

Apparently not.

Worlds Window had paid for minority shares in two dormant companies that owned two questionable coal prospecting rights in SA – worse, share registers show the Guptas did not transfer the shares to Worlds Window.

Even worse, it appeared that there was no coal and the project was abandoned two years later.

Oakbay got money for nothing.

^{A purported coal deal in 2010, in which Worlds Window gave the Guptas money for nothing and never got it back.}

Our recent report compared this to two nearly identical Gupta deals in which they appeared to launder stolen Transnet and Free State provincial government money back home. It appeared to be a modus operandi.

But Mr Patel denied Worlds Window was party to a sham. He said the R31.5m was “for profitable mining”. He said: “They issued the share to us, but they might have done a fraud [sic].” He sent us a copy of Worlds Window’s purported share certificates.

Worlds Window sent its South African lawyers to investigate the fate of their money – but it only did this a full six years later, after the Gupta scandal blew up in SA. Mr Patel said the group was now considering taking legal action to recover the money.

Flying high

By early 2011, Worlds Window had registered two subsidiary companies here, and Goyal was a regular visitor.

The #GuptaLeaks show how Gupta employees made sure his travels were comfortable. They arranged his luxury airport pickups and Saxonwold meetings with South African Gupta brother Tony.

They hosted Goyal and his wife at their luxury Clifftop Lodge in Welgevonden Game Reserve in Limpopo. A helicopter was to transport the Goyals there, and the Guptas booked them into the lodge’s honeymoon suite, according to the leaks.

In 2011, Gupta staff chartered flights to carry the Gupta and Goyal families from Delhi to watch the Cricket World Cup final in Mumbai. They were joined by the family of a powerful Indian politician who was at the time a cabinet minister.

India beat Sri Lanka by six wickets.

Later that year, Goyal and the Guptas handled some travel arrangements for the politician’s adult son and the son’s wife when the couple visited Cape Town for Christmas and New Year. The Guptas paid for their stay at the luxurious Queen Victoria Hotel at the V&A Waterfront, the #GuptaLeaks show.

READ: Tegeta buyer ‘hid’ Gupta assets before

More recently, Worlds Window transferred ownership of one of its shell companies to the politician – who refused to explain the deal to us (see story below: #amaBhungane: Indian politician’s deal with Gupta partner).

In 2014, when Tony Gupta needed a helicopter for a 250km trip in the western Indian state of Gujarat, he called upon Goyal. Goyal wielded his apparently significant influence there: A senior Gupta staffer emailed him the travel details and Goyal forwarded this to billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani.

Adani and his global industrial group of the same name form a political and financial powerhouse in India. He is reported to be close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Goyal wrote to Adani to vouch for the Gupta staffer: “He is Ajay’s [one of the Guptas] brother can you help pls. Thx nd rgds.”

Adani quickly wrote back: “I don’t have helicopter, but if he require the plane let me know and will provide him… Gautam.”

Not two years later, the Guptas and Adani cobbled together a would-be weapons deal that, as we previously reported, was set up to enrich them at the expense of South African state arms manufacturer Denel.

Down to business

Worlds Window’s apparently pseudo mining investments and Goyal’s South African visits seem to have set the framework for a more lucrative business – money laundry.

Some time back, amaBhungane received an anonymous tipoff implicating Worlds Window and the Guptas in ports corruption in South Africa in 2011.

It said: “ZPMC has been inflating prices of their cranes at the ports, particularly the seven cranes purchased for port of Durban, by more than 15% to accommodate bribes that included many senior Transnet officials.”

ZPMC is the name commonly used by Chinese state-owned crane manufacturer Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries.

Our anonymous tipster described the alleged role of “a representative of the Guptas” who arranged kickbacks through a Worlds Window account in the UAE.

This was Naveen Agrawal, a long-time director of the Worlds Window group. He did not respond to our questions.

We found one chain of correspondence in which a group of people discussed ZPMC’s crane bid. They named a “Naveen” who appeared to advise ZPMC on how to engage with Transnet on another crane tender.

We also found an “agent agreement” – often of a cover for bribes and kickbacks – between ZPMC and a UAE-registered company called JJ Trading. The contract and related documents explain how the cranes were only worth $81m (R570m then), but ZPMC inflated the price to $92m (R650m then) to make room for “commissions and fees” for JJ.

The person who signed on behalf of JJ was not identified.

At about the same time, a senior Gupta staffer emailed Goyal a confidential Transnet document, outlining a separate, upcoming crane tender.

The document metadata indicates it was drafted by an employee in Transnet’s Office of the Chairperson and Group CEO. Then Transnet chief executive Brian Molefe told us he did not know how the Guptas got it. For years, Molefe has been questioned for his proximity to the Guptas.

ZPMC denied it was party to corruption; Transnet said it was investigating, and Goyal did not explain the latter email exchange when we asked.

So, who was JJ Trading, the company that had signed the “agent” agreement with ZPMC? Was it controlled by Worlds Window as the tipoff suggested?

A desert mystery

Ram Ratan Jagati probably did not intend to become the public face of an international money laundromat.

His social media profiles identify him as “manager at JJ Trading”, but no-one answered his or JJ’s phones or emails. We were left to piece together his profile using snippets of information online and in the #GuptaLeaks.

JJ’s website advertises its experience as a trader of scrap metal, rice, beans and other commodities.

Jagati’s social media profiles show him to be balding, moustached, bespectacled and neatly dressed. He appears to live in Sharjah, in the UAE, but states that he comes from Ahmedabad in India.

                                               ^{Ram Ratan Jagati, JJ Trading “manager”.}

JJ is registered in the UAE’s Hamriyah Free Zone, a financial haven that keeps company owners’ identities a strict secret.

Jagati lists at least 41 Worlds Window staffers and directors as his Facebook friends – but emails in the #GuptaLeaks show he was more than just a “friend” to the group, particularly when moving money for the Guptas.

In one email to Jagati, a Worlds Window director said: “Dear Ram Ratan. Please provide [$1m] to Arctos.” The director copied in a Worlds Window administrative employee.

Arctos Trading is one of the two Worlds Window subsidiaries established in SA. It managed a Gupta mine in Mpumalanga.

Jagati replied with proof of a $1m wire transfer from the UAE-registered IMR General Trading to Arctos. He copied two Worlds Window staffers.

Goyal at least part owned IMR, the #GuptaLeaks show. One online UAE business list recorded “ramratanjati@yahoo.com” as IMR’s contact – a misspelling of Jagati’s actual email address. Another listed “admin@worldswindow.cc”.

Jagati’s proof of payment from IMR to Arctos claimed the money was for the “purchase of metal scrap”, but a Worlds Window staffer then forwarded this to a Gupta manager “for your reference”. A trailing email notes that it was “payment for [Bank of Baroda] instalment” – contradicting Jagati.

In other words, money had moved but the commercial explanation was a fiction. And the sequence of events reveals Jagati to have been a Worlds Window and Goyal factotum.

^{Another apparently fictional deal, handled by JJ Trading’s manager Jagati for Goyal and Worlds Window, evidencing Jagati’s place in their international network.}

More emails underscored this.

Shortly after Transnet gave ZPMC the crane contract, a #GuptaLeaks accounting document appears to record JJ’s receipt of $969 086 (R8m then). It is described as “Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries”, ZPMC’s full name.

Shortly after this, a Gupta accountant emailed his colleagues instructions on how to distribute a larger sum – $3.3m, apparently including the ZPMC payment – to three Gupta-owned companies in India.

One of the Gupta staffers then sent the email to Jagati and a senior Worlds Window accountant, and JJ promptly wired the funds from its account at HSBC to the three Gupta companies.

JJ and, again, Jagati appeared to answer to Worlds Window.

                     ^{Worlds Window and the Guptas used JJ Trading and Jagati to move kickbacks.}

It wasn’t me

No, answered Goyal. “I am not the director, promoter or even employee of JJ. We [Worlds Window] never received any money either from JJ or Gupta [or] ZPMC.

“I have neither met any officer/executive of ZPMC or Transnet, [and] we were never involved in any Transnet related business so I will be highly obliged if you don’t link my name.”

He added: “For your satisfaction, we may provide you even certificate from chartered accountant that whatever business Worlds Window did with Gupta, it was 100% as per law. Even we declare all investment in our account books or whenever required informed government authorities also [sic].”

For several weeks, he did not come up with the promised accountant’s certificate. Then, in response to final questions last week, he again promised to produce one, supposedly to clear Worlds Window.

He told us: “You are misusing your writing power. With all respect, I have doubt on your intention.”

He later appeared to accuse us of drafting fiction: “Let me appreciate you are good story maker.”

Transnet spending spree

The next year, 2012, the Chinese state-owned locomotive manufacturer China South Rail (CSR) was bidding to sell Transnet 95 new locomotives.

Goyal and the Guptas got involved, #GuptaLeaks emails show.

In January, a CSR deputy director emailed Transnet CEO Molefe and CSR’s vice president. He attached a letter requesting to visit Transnet sites in South Africa.

The CSR deputy director forwarded the email to a Worlds Window group director, Rupesh Bansal.

Bansal forwarded the email to a Worlds Window staffer, commenting in broken English: “Please provide this letter copy along with update on previous email as required by Piyoosh Ji.” Recall that this is Goyal’s first name. “Please suggest him that this is the letter is sent and the points mentioned in letter are practical and to be pursued by CSR.”

The Worlds Window staffer passed the email to Goyal’s assistant, who passed it on to a senior Gupta manager and to Ajay Gupta’s son.

Meanwhile, Molefe responded – politely and appropriately – to CSR. Someone also sent this email to Worlds Window and Goyal’s assistant. She passed it on to the Guptas.

Evidently, Goyal and the Guptas’ mutual interests extended well beyond mining.

Goyal failed to explain when we asked him too.

CRRC Corporation Limited, which absorbed CSR in 2015, has not answered our questions.

We could not reach Bansal for comment.

Kickbacks

In October 2012, Transnet awarded CSR the R2.7bn 95-locomotive contract.

And, as we previously reported, CSR then started kicking 20% of the contract back to JJ and a related company called Century General Trading.

Century General is also registered in a UAE financial secrecy haven. Like JJ, its website claims that it trades scrap metal, grains and beans. And Ramratan Jagati – the JJ “general manager” who takes orders from Worlds Window and spends Goyal’s company’s money – registered its website.

A joint Worlds Window-Gupta accounting document, discussed later, shows CSR made one of its first payments – $6m (R50m then) –  to Century General in December 2012. In the following weeks, JJ and Century General wired at least $2m (R17m then) from their accounts at HSBC in Dubai to the Guptas’ front companies.

Next, Transnet ordered another 100 locomotives from CSR. These ones cost Transnet R4.4bn, and CSR started paying 21% of this to Jagati’s JJ and Century General.

And in 2014, Transnet ordered another 359 locomotives for R18.1bn. CSR started funnelling a further 21% to JJ and Century General.

All in, these non-descript little UAE metal, rice and bean dealers stood to earn a whopping R5.3bn in CSR payments. By comparison, this was more than three times the R1.7bn annual turnover for Worlds Window Impex, at the time.

JJ and Century General were to keep a 15% fee (R795m) on the Chinese kickbacks, the leaks show, way outperforming Worlds Window’s 3% operating margins (R57m) on its scrap metal.

The laundromat appeared to dwarf the Worlds Window front office.

Corporate espionage?

But Mr Patel, the Worlds Window insider, tried to convince us there was nothing out of the ordinary here.

He said of JJ: “They are professional consultant. They are associated with CSR for the last 10 years.

“JJ is not involved with Transnet deal. JJ has nothing to do with Gupta or anybody, and I don’t think you will find any deal between JJ and Gupta.

“CSR used to take help of JJ. They used to take help in Europe, Africa, India, Pak…, everywhere JJ’s consulting for them.”

We thought JJ just traded metal, rice and beans.

Nevertheless, things went awry in South Africa, Mr Patel said: “In South Africa, CSR cancelled their agreement with JJ. They say we cannot go ahead with you in South Africa. In this case JJ did lot of hard work. They have lot of expenditure for CSR, before tender.”

What sort of work?

“They hired eight or 10 guys in South Africa also, and they selected, they interviewed four or five black partners for them.”

How would a UAE scrap metal trader or its non-descript manager Jagati qualify for that job?

“Because CSR used to tell them: ‘Can we hire this consultant?’ Because being a government company, CSR cannot pay any money before tender.

“So, before tender they were required to hire so many people to do the research and consultancy and internal information. So, they hire JJ to finance all this information.

“So they hire people for intelligence. So, how much Bombardier will quote? How much GE [General Electric] will quote? So, even for this type of information, they hire people.”

Bombardier and GE were competing bidders on the Transnet locomotive contracts.

“They [JJ] have some intelligence system, as per my knowledge. Definitely they use someone to spy on somebody. Definitely. As per my knowledge. So many services.”

So many.

It was unfortunate that Mr Patel did not want to be named or explain more clearly the source of his apparent knowledge about JJ, so we asked him if he could get us documents detailing the alleged dispute between JJ and CSR.

He chuckled nervously: “Awww, ha ha ha. Why you want to? I will prefer if you write all Gupta instead of JJ. I would rather not.”

How can we reach JJ?

“Let me check, because I don’t want there to be any harm to JJ. Because I know because of internal story, JJ is in loss because of this deal, because they have been cheated by [CSR].”

“Flying Money”

Intrigued, we dug deep into the #GuptaLeaks to try to understand Worlds Window and the Guptas’ dealings.

We found huge sums of money flowing between the two groups.

Some of it was for legitimate business, as Goyal claimed. For example, Worlds Window subsidiary Arctos formed coal mining partnerships with two Gupta companies and managed their coal mine in Mpumalanga.

But other money flows were suspicious.

For example, we found a spreadsheet in the #GuptaLeaks, titled “Worlds Window”. It was attached to an email from one Gupta executive to her senior colleague. In the email, the executive typed: “Is this what u looking for?” No further context was given.

The spreadsheet is a ledger, recording 251 transactions from January 2010 until February 2013.

It looks a lot like traditional “hawala” bookkeeping.

DOWNLOAD: The Hawala alternative remittance system and its role in money laundering

Hawala is the name for an ancient form of money transfer developed in south Asia. It is still used today, often legitimately, as an alternative to formal banking systems. But because the money is not remitted through formal channels, it is a popular way to launder money.

The Chinese developed a similar system, known as “flying money”.

As a simple example, a man in the UAE wants to pay a woman in South Africa. He gives his money to an Emirati hawala broker, or “hawaladar”.

The Emirati broker will then send a message to a South African broker who will give the money to the woman there, minus a fee.

Both brokers will have many clients remitting money in both directions. Each broker will keep a running balance of how much he owes the other broker. Over time, the brokers will settle the difference.

The Gupta-Worlds Window “hawala” ledger describes a group of Worlds Windows-linked entities in one column. Other columns describe the transactions. Sometimes the explanations are cryptic, and sometimes they are clear. Overall, it appears as if the Worlds Window-linked “brokers” were transacting with Gupta-linked entities to remit money to and from South Africa, India and the UAE.

In some entries, it is easy to see how Gupta companies paid Worlds Windows companies in one country, and on the same day, the Worlds Window companies paid the Guptas the same amount in another country, and vice versa.

Thus, money was effectively “beamed” across borders.

Just like a traditional hawala ledger, this one keeps a dollar balance of how much the Guptas owed Worlds Window.

In total, $74m (R660m then) flowed into the account, and $74m flowed out, settling up the balance over time.

While the ultimate source and destination of the transactions is not always clear, some ZPMC and CSR payments can be traced from the Chinese companies, through JJ and Century General, for remittance to the Guptas in India, the UAE and South Africa.

^{The Worlds Window-Gupta “hawala” transactions, including remittances derived from Transnet contractors.}

A R76m roundabout

A number of transactions over six days in November and December 2011 were noteworthy. The transfers were recorded in the “hawala” ledger and are largely corroborated by other records in the #GuptaLeaks.

On November 30 and December 1, Gupta mining company Westdawn Investments transferred R44m to Worlds Window’s South African subsidiary Arctos. This was broken into four smaller amounts.

Immediately, Arctos transferred R44m to the Guptas’ Tegeta, broken into four differently apportioned amounts.

Tegeta kept R14.1m and immediately transferred R29.9m to the Guptas’ Oakbay Investments, which quickly parked R20m in an account at the Bank of Baroda in Sandton.

^{Over six days, the Guptas suspiciously roundtripped R76m through their group companies, routing all of it through a Worlds Window subsidiary.}

Four days later, Oakbay and a Gupta company described as “Islandsite” transferred R32m to Worlds Window’s Arctos. This was broken into five smaller amounts. Immediately, Arctos passed this on to Idwala Coal, a Gupta company, broken into three amounts.

Idwala immediately passed the R32m on to Oakbay, again broken into three amounts.

All in, the Guptas had routed R76m in a circle, through a number of their own companies, funnelling all of it through Arctos and back to their Tegeta and Oakbay.

The money flows appear to be artificial. We do not know their purpose, but in the process, the Guptas and Arctos employed three techniques common to illicit finance.

“Smurfing”: A money launderer breaks up and moves the money in small amounts to avoid detection.

“Layering”: Money is moved between numerous different accounts to obscure its source and destination.

“Roundtripping”: A series of transactions is made between companies serving to boost their revenues without real commercial benefit.

Middlemen

Gupta and Worlds Window companies often appeared to lend each other money, but the circumstances were suspicious, raising the concern that the loans could have been a fake cover for money movement.

If so, we again do not know the true motivation behind the flows.

In one example in 2013, Oakbay appeared to pay Arctos R86m. But the Guptas’ staff had a problem six months later: Their auditors needed documents to legitimately explain the payment, but there were none.

So, a Gupta executive emailed a Worlds Window manager a loan contract with non-descript terms. She said: “Please sign agreement as we did last year also.”

In at least two other cases, Worlds Window’s South African subsidiaries appeared to lend Gupta companies R16m and about $32.6m (R250m then).

In fact, the Worlds Window’s subsidiaries again appeared to act as unnecessary middlemen.

They channelled loans, originally from Bank of Baroda to the Worlds Window subsidiaries, straight on to the Gupta companies. The Gupta companies in turn repaid 9% interest to the Worlds Window companies, which passed this back to the bank.

In a 2014 email, a senior Gupta manager explained to Tony Gupta that, at times, Piyoosh Goyal had paid them “through [Baroda] loan”.

If so, it is possible Goyal or Worlds Window placed a fixed deposit with Baroda abroad. Baroda in South Africa then lent the money to the Worlds Window subsidiaries, which passed it on to the Guptas.

Indeed, Baroda described the $32.6m as a “loan against fixed deposit”.

If Worlds Window in South Africa failed to repay Baroda the underlying loan amount, the bank could simply claim the fixed deposit. Thus, money would have been moved from abroad to the Guptas under the guise of a loan, and Baroda would have earned itself a 9% fee.

We have found no evidence that the underlying loans were repaid to Baroda.

Loans from banks against fixed deposits are used for various legitimate reasons, but they tend to be between related companies, not unrelated parties in different countries.

The technique can also be abused to quietly move money across borders without detection, stymieing money laundering investigators who call this a “loan back”.

                      ^{Worlds Window appeared to use a “loan back” scheme to get money to the Guptas.}

The Guptas used Baroda loan backs to move money in other suspicious circumstances, the #GuptaLeaks show.

For instance, the Guptas at times placed hundreds of millions of rand sourced from JJ and the Transnet kickbacks into fixed-term deposits at Baroda in both Dubai and South Africa. Using these deposits as collateral, Baroda would typically lend 95% of the value of the fixed deposit to another Gupta company.

Without the #GuptaLeaks revealing the connections between the fixed deposit made by Gupta Company A to the loan made by Baroda to another Gupta Company B, it would be difficult for an investigator to follow the money trail from Company A to Company B as there would be no direct transfer.

Baroda’s intermediating the effective transfer between the two appears often to have served to obscure such money flows. Baroda did not respond to our questions.

Fallout

In the end, things did not work out for the Worlds Window launderers.

“Gupta’s have not just cheated South Africans but also cheated Indians,” Goyal told us.

“We went into partnership with the Gupta brothers for mining, and we were cheated by them in the business.”

Regarding one of their coal deals, he said: “After [them] receiving our payment, they have not allowed us to get any proceeds from the mine. We were not allowed to go on the property, and also they threatened us for not to even enter South Africa as they control things in the country [sic].”

He said the Guptas were now “illegally” selling Worlds Window’s coal.

“I have not even visited South Africa since last four years and we are now pursuing legal cases against Guptas.”

Worlds Window laid a criminal charge with the Hawks against a senior Gupta manager who allegedly stole R7.2m from one of its South African accounts in 2015. A Hawks officer confirmed he was investigating the charge.

Goyal told us: “You know very well I am in fighting with Gupta since approximately March/April 2013. But in your story, you are mentioning [payments in] 2014/2015. May I know the reason of that? I assume definitely 2013 is not fitting in your story so you prefer 2015.”

Indeed, records of Goyal’s trips to South Africa cease in the #GuptaLeaks from April 2013. But the leaks also suggest that, until late 2014, the money continued to flow between Oakbay and Arctos and JJ continued to pay into the Guptas’ UAE accounts.

But, nearly three years after the first Transnet kickbacks flowed to JJ’s accounts, HSBC shut down JJ and Century General’s accounts, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.

HSBC told us: “To the best of our knowledge, HSBC previously exited, is in the process of exiting, or never had a banking relationship with JJ Trading [or] Century General Trading.”

But HSBC’s action seemed to be a minor inconvenience for the Guptas, who rerouted the kickback flow from JJ and Century General in Dubai to the HSBC accounts of a Gupta-related company, Tequesta, in Hong Kong.

By then, CSR had paid JJ and Century R1.6bn of the intended R5.3bn – and the #GuptaLeaks show substantial evidence of this flowing into the Guptas’ offshore accounts.

In a 2015 email, Worlds Window director Rupesh Bansal – the same one who received earlier CSR-Transnet correspondence and passed it on to Goyal – emailed CSR’s vice president. Bansal attached a spreadsheet that consolidated CSR’s payments to JJ and Century General.

The CSR man forwarded this spreadsheet to a Gupta email address.

Last week, Goyal said: “I repeat, Worlds Window neither control JJ nor Century General and never taken even a single penny from anybody on account of supply to Transnet.

“Apart from mining,” he added, “we had no areas of mutual interest with [the Guptas]”.

#GuptaLeaks: Liverpool company owns 49% of Indian firm implicated in kickback scheme

The Guptas used what looks like an international money laundering network to move their wealth. The network reaches back to the UK.

^{amaBhungane and Scorpio}

Britain’s biggest metal recycling firm holds a 49% stake in Indian firm Worlds Window, which moved hundreds of millions in kickbacks around the world for the Guptas.

The money flows are exposed in a new amaBhungane and Scorpio investigation (scroll up), based in large part on the #GuptaLeaks.

The British firm, European Metal Recycling (EMR), is a Liverpool-based business. It says its “heritage” reaches back to the 1940s. It turns over more than £2bn a year, and is largely owned and run by one family, the Sheppards.

EMR bought 49% of Worlds Window Impex India (the parent company) in 2008. EMR’s audited financials state that it “exercises significant influence over the operating and financial policies of” Worlds Window.

EMR has regularly injected capital into Worlds Window, EMR’s financials and other records show.

There is no evidence that EMR knowingly contributed to Worlds Window’s suspicious financial activity.

Between 2010 and 2015, Worlds Window directors and staff involved themselves in private bids for multibillion-rand crane and locomotive tenders at state-owned logistics company Transnet.

Offshore shell companies

The Worlds Window directors and staff then worked with offshore shell companies, which received “agent fees” – structured like kickbacks – and helped to disperse the money around the world, including to businesses associated with the Gupta family in South Africa and abroad.

Together, the Guptas and Worlds Window also moved more millions in many suspicious transactions, according to our investigation. These transactions bore multiple hallmarks of money laundering, although the source of the money was not always known.

The Guptas are friends with president Jacob Zuma and kept Zuma’s son on their payroll. They have been accused of grand corruption here.

This week, the Asset Forfeiture Unit moved to seize R1.6bn in assets linked to the Guptas and firms they did business with. It said it hoped to seize at least R50bn in 17 related cases under investigation.

ALSO READ: 14 Gupta linked companies and individuals to have their assets frozen

EMR responded to our initial questions. It said that before 2008, it had “a pretty long established trading relationship with Worlds Window who effectively acted as a sales agent into India”.

It said: “EMR is disturbed to hear press reports of the alleged involvement of Worlds Windows in money laundering, which we became aware of late last year through #GuptaLeaks. We are currently carefully looking at this investment as a consequence.”

We had asked EMR if it also had a business relationship with a number of offshore companies central to the laundering of Transnet kickbacks. These included JJ Trading, Century General Trading and IMR General Trading, all registered in UAE financial havens.

EMR’s response was confusing. It said: “EMR has no involvement with any of the companies mentioned, however a few companies have been counterparties in the legitimate trade of scrap metal.”

We asked it to explain, name its trading partners and provide evidence of legitimate business. It did not.

EMR spokesperson Olivia Healey sent us a general response, referring to a statement in EMR’s audited financials in which it classifies Worlds Window companies as “associate undertakings” because EMR “exercises significant influence over the operating and financial policies of the company”.

She said this statement “misrepresents the reality of this situation”.

She continued: “When consolidating our accounts, we work on standard assumptions as follows: ‘An associate is an entity in which the group has significant influence, but not control, over the operating and financial policies of the entity. Significant influence is presumed to exist when the investor holds between 20% and 50% of the equity voting rights.’ The important word in here is presumed. So, for the purpose of accounting, Worlds Windows is presumed to fall into this category as we have a significant minority interest.

“The reality of the situation is that [EMR] had no board representation and exercised no management control over the business. This financial investment was effectively managed by a post audit financial review which had not raised any red flags to date.

“So unfortunately we are simply unable to assist you any further with your enquiries.”

Among our questions, we had asked EMR whether it knew about or had influence over Worlds Window’s business relationship with the Guptas, the apparent laundering of kickbacks via JJ and Century General and whether it condoned other suspicious money flows, outlined in our investigation (scroll up).

#amaBhungane: Indian politician’s deal with Gupta partner

The Guptas chartered Cricket World Cup flights and bankrolled a luxury hotel stay for the family of Kapil Sibal.

^{amaBhungane and Scorpio}

Former Indian government minister and leading Congress Party politician Kapil Sibal has refused to explain a business deal with Worlds Window, a firm that apparently helped the South African Guptas to launder hundreds of millions around the world.

The suspicious money flows are explained in a new investigation (scroll up) by amaBhungane and Scorpio, based mainly on the #GuptaLeaks.

There is no evidence that Sibal was party to money laundering or corruption, but it is worth noting his refusal to explain a deal with Worlds Window, an Indian scrap metal and logistics conglomerate.

Sibal is also a top lawyer in India.

Between 2010 and 2015, hundreds of millions of rand flowed between companies linked to the Guptas and Worlds Window.

The money included Chinese kickbacks for Transnet crane and locomotive contracts. The transactions moved money between South Africa, China, UAE and India.

Lacking commercial substance

Many transactions appeared to lack commercial substance, although the source of the money was not always known.

Worlds Window was founded by Indian national Piyoosh Goyal.

After entering business with the Guptas in 2010, Goyal visited South Africa often. The Guptas also visited India.

In 2011, Gupta staff chartered flights to ferry the families of Sibal, Goyal and the Guptas between Delhi and Mumbai, for a Cricket World Cup match.

Sibal had been a government minister since 2004 and was, at that time, in charge of two portfolios: communications and information technology and human resource development. He was also a member of parliament.

Sibal was joined by his wife and adult son Akhil, also a lawyer.

Sibal senior said: “I have never had any dealings financial or otherwise with the Guptas. I have met Mr Gupta in Delhi only once when my friend Piyoosh Goyal invited me to watch the Cricket World Cup.

No Gupta invite

“We did not travel on the invitation of Mr Gupta nor am I aware of any charter by him. My wife, Akhil and I went on the invitation of Piyoosh. Even while watching the match we did not sit with Mr Gupta nor go to the ground with him.”

Akhil also said he did not know the Guptas had chartered the flight.

Later that year, the Guptas paid for Akhil and his wife to stay at the luxurious Queen Victoria Hotel at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront over Christmas and New Year, the #GuptaLeaks show.

Akhil said: “I had requested Mr Goyal to help with arranging a car in Cape Town, and offered to pay the charges… I have known him for several years, and he is my client.”

The leaks show Goyal passed the request on to Gupta staffers, who arranged the car.

Akhil said he tried to pay in full for the hotel accommodation.

But, he said: “At the time of checking out of the hotel in Cape Town, when we asked to settle the bill for incidental expenses at the hotel, apart from the room rate, which was already settled by us in advance, the hotel staff informed us that the incidentals had been settled at the instance of Mr Goyal.

“Subsequent to my return to India, I discovered the pre-paid charges for the accommodation were also reversed. None of this was done at my request. Despite my remonstrations with Mr Goyal, on his insistence, I accepted his generous gesture.”

The #GuptaLeaks show the Guptas’ company Sahara actually paid. Akhil said he had no knowledge of this.

In November 2013, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charged Goyal with allegedly bribing a senior state banker for a loan.

The CBI reports to a number of ministries, including law and justice. Kapil Sibal was law and justice minister from May 2013 to May 2014.

There is no evidence to suggest Sibal interfered in Goyal’s case. In fact, CBI told us that it filed a charge sheet with a Mumbai court in 2015.

The case is still outstanding.

The Grande Castello deal

Indian corporate records show that, in February 2017, Sibal became a director of Grande Castello. Until then, Grande Castello had been a 100% Worlds Window subsidiary. It appeared to be a shell company, without assets or revenues.

We asked Sibal to explain his directorship of “Worlds Window subsidiary Grande Castello”.

He was curt: “You don’t seem to have your facts right.”

We provided him with details from the corporate records and asked him which facts were incorrect.

He stonewalled again, saying: “I have never been a director of any subsidiary company of any company.”

We provided proof the corporate register listed him, not a different Kapil Sibal.

He did not respond.

On further investigation, we discovered that Worlds Window had transferred ownership of Grande Castello into Sibal’s name in November 2016.

We explained this to him asked him to explain in light of his previous responses. We also asked him to explain substantial new loans on Grande Castello’s balance sheet and name the lender.

He said: “From your last mail, it is apparent that your assertion regarding Grande Castello in your first mail was incorrect. You now abandon that position, assert a new fact, and still wrongfully accuse me of lying.

“Sans a relevant factual foundation, you nevertheless proceed from conjecture to wild speculation and deem it reasonable to ask unwarranted questions, entirely ignoring the categorical responses already provided to you, which sufficiently answer your queries.

“I am now convinced that your intent is mischievous and your approach less than objective. I don’t intend to correspond with you any further.”

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At an historic secret ballot of no confidence in the South African Parliament yesterday, the country’s scandal-hit president survived – but by a small majority of 21 as up to 40 of his own ANC MPs rebelled against him.

South Africa is now at yet another crossroads.

At the recent funeral of one of Nelson Mandela’s closest friends and fellow long-time Robben Island detainee, his ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (herself an MP) said: “All what we fought for is not what is going on right now … our country is in crisis and anyone who cannot see that is just bluffing themselves.”

At the very spot in Cape Town where Mandela gave his first speech after his long walk to freedom in 1990, thousands of protesters assembled and then marched on Parliament today to demand Zuma’s removal.

This being fractured South Africa, they were joined by large numbers of pro-Zuma supporters.

Meanwhile, roads from the Mandelas’ one-time township home in Soweto into the economic capital Johannesburg were barricaded with rocks and burning tyres from early morning as protesters took action across the province.

Unemployment hit a 14-year high this week as Zuma’s stewardship of a fragile resources-based economy – now officially in recession – bites deep.

A promising national economic blueprint dreamed up at the start of Zuma’s presidency has been abandoned.

The economy of South Africa – a member of the exclusive G20 club of nations — is now growing at half the worst-case scenario rate envisaged by the experts Zuma appointed five years ago.

State-owned companies — the supposed engines of economic growth and job creation in ANC’s economic policy – have stuttered and stalled.

The state electricity utility, the freight and passenger rail companies, the national airline and the arms manufacturer all enjoy near-monopoly status in South Africa, but are increasingly being propped up financially by the government.

To support them, public money is diverted from other urgently needed social programmes – education, health, housing.

It is here – in the beating heart of the country’s economic machine – that a huge corruption scandal threatens to engulf Zuma, his party and perhaps the country.

And it is a scandal that has been exposed by good old fashioned investigative journalism in the face of sinister intimidation and threats of violence.

Over the past several weeks, the terms “state capture” and #Guptaleaks have dominated social media in South Africa, but beyond its borders not much is known.

What are the #GuptaLeaks and ‘state capture’?

The phrase “state capture” has emerged to describe a situation where a business family, the Guptas, enjoying close ties to Zuma, have manoeuvred themselves into a position where they allegedly wield control over state-owned companies and their huge procurement budgets, diverting huge sums into their own pockets and, by extension, Zuma’s family.

The Guptas are a family of Indian immigrants who arrived in South Africa from the early 1990s onwards, apparently spurred by the business promise of a newly democratic, post-apartheid state.

The family is headed by three brothers — Ajay, Atul and Rajesh.

So closely have the Zumas and Guptas become entwined that they are popularly referred to as the Zuptas.

The key connection is Zuma’s son, Duduzane, whom the Gupta brothers took under their wing a decade ago and groomed for a role as a director – and billionaire shareholder – in the family’s business empire.

The Guptas are allegedly able to influence state procurement through the cascading appointment of their cronies, via Zuma-appointed cabinet ministers to key positions on decision-making committees.

In several instances, would-be ministers have reportedly been informed of their cabinet appointments first by the Guptas, before receiving the official call from President Zuma.

All this has been highlighted by one of the biggest leaks in the history of South African journalism.

Earlier this year, investigative journalists obtained an enormous trove of emails and documents from the heart of the Gupta business empire. The subsequent exposés, dubbed the #GuptaLeaks, appear to confirm the state capture hypothesis that journalists have been chipping away at for years.

For example, the latest story from the leaks, published on Tuesday, reveals how the Guptas bankrolled the loan repayments for a house owned by President Zuma’s fourth wife.

They channelled the money in part via Duduzane, dipping into a Dubai-based slush fund set up to receive kickbacks from the successful Chinese winner of a major South African state locomotive tender.

The #GuptaLeaks have lifted the lid on a multinational money laundering machine, dubbed the Dubai Laundromat, into which the Guptas allegedly funnel cash derived from state contracts in South Africa.

How did the Guptas benefit financially?

The cash is derived in two ways: either directly from contracts with state-owned companies won by Gupta-owned businesses; or from “success fees” solicited from international companies wanting to do business with the South African state.

So far, the #GuptaLeaks have exposed how kickbacks were paid or facilitated to the Guptas by foreign companies throughout the world.

They include a Swiss construction company, two German IT giants, a multinational management consultancy, a Chinese state outfit, and a major accounting firm.

• #GuptaLeaks: all the latest on the Gupta-Zuma scandal.

And the Guptas certainly know how to spend their gains.

Having operated somewhat under the radar during the early years of Zuma’s presidency, the Guptas shot to national infamy in 2013 when they persuaded a raft of government departments to bend the law, allowing them to land an airliner of wedding guests from India at a high-security military air base near the capital, Pretoria.

The South African “wedding of the millennium” between a Gupta niece and her Indian fiancé, was designed to showcase the family’s wealth and influence in their adopted home.

Their Indian guests were whisked to the sprawling Sun City leisure complex by a VIP convoy of blue light-fitted vehicles normally reserved for government dignitaries, where they mingled with a who’s who of South African politicians and businessmen.

An inquiry held in response to the public outrage about multiple breaches of national security and protocol heard that “Number One” – an apparent reference to President Zuma – had pulled strings in the Guptas’ favour.

The #GuptaLeaks have subsequently revealed how the Guptas sucked cash out of a state-funded rural development programme and sent it to Dubai, where it briefly washed through the “Laundromat” of Gupta companies before it was used to pay the wedding bills back in South Africa.

Multinational auditing firm KPMG waved the transactions through, turning an apparent blind eye to “related party” transfers, thereby allowing the Guptas to also claim millions in tax-deductible expenses.

KPMG said it “stood by our work done and audit opinions issued”, but its former Africa head attended the wedding and wrote thanking the Guptas gushingly afterwards: “I have never been to an event like that and probably will not because it was an event of the millennium.”

Meanwhile, the leaks have also unearthed a letter, drafted by the Guptas on President Zuma’s behalf, in which they ask the Abu Dhabi crown prince to consider granting Zuma and his family residency in the country. While Zuma denied wishing to make the emirate a “second home” it has been confirmed that Duduzane obtained residency.

Suspicions that the Guptas have been preparing a Dubai bolthole for Zuma were enhanced by media reports, based on the leaks, that the Guptas had acquired a £19-million mansion in an exclusive Dubai neighbourhood intended for Zuma’s use. The property is just a few doors down from a pad owned by Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe.

Zuma’s spokesperson said he owned no property outside South Africa.

Paralysis of the proud ANC

Throughout these, and many other scandals throughout the Zuma presidency, the once-proud African National Congress (ANC) party has stood paralysed, unable or unwilling to confront the Zupta state capture phenomenon.

With many of its officials allegedly “captured” by the Guptas, the ANC’s inaction is perhaps unsurprising.

The social cost has been enormous – not least in the fraying of race relations which Mandela’s ANC worked so hard to build.

As the public outcry against the Guptas reached a crescendo last year, UK public relations firm Bell Pottinger – founded by Margaret Thatcher’s former PR guru Lord Tim Bell – stepped into the breach to spin for the Guptas on a £100,000-a-month contract.

So, despite the mountain of dirty laundry already in the public domain about the Guptas relationship with Zuma, the firm accepted a brief – partly in consultation with Zuma’s son Duduzane – to run a counter-campaign blaming white-owned businesses for perpetuating “economic apartheid” in South Africa.

Somehow, it was “white monopoly capital” standing in the way of genuinely aspirant black businessmen – like the immigrant Gupta family – from fulfilling their full economic potential in the country.

Bell Pottinger now stands accused of stoking racial tension in the country, aimed at its white population in general and at the media in particular.

Intimidation of journalists

A pop-up movement called Black First Land First has subsequently targeted editors and journalists at the forefront of exposing the Guptas’ dealings.

At one point, Bell Pottinger gave feedback about a prospective article proposed by the movement’s leader. The PR firm also scripted speeches subsequently delivered by ANC politicians at political rallies.

For the past eighteen months, an army of fake Twitter bots and one-man blogs have spewed a torrent of racially-charged invective into public discourse around the Guptas and Zuma.

Although such tactics have not been conclusively shown to be the brainchild of Bell Pottinger, a public outcry forced them to drop the Guptas last year.

Last month Bell Pottinger’s CEO James Henderson initially offered “a full, unequivocal and absolute apology”.

He then told the BBC in an interview last week: “At worst, we were very naive in what we got involved with, but there was, at any point, no intention to create the impact that is claimed we created.”

But the atmosphere in South Africa remains poisonous. Black First Land First recently barricaded an editor in his home, scrawling graffiti on his garage door, and assaulting a colleague.

Ignoring a subsequent court order barring them from intimidating journalists, the same group hijacked a public event hosted by investigative journalists to explain the #GuptaLeaks, manhandling a journalist to the ground.

A judge ruled earlier on Tuesday that the movement was in contempt of court, and handed its leader a three-month jail sentence, suspended on condition that they did not breach the order again.

For his part, Zuma will seek to direct the appointment of his successor to protect him and his family from future prosecution when his term as president ends in 2019.

But if he does one day face trial, expect the #GuptaLeaks to feature strongly as evidence.

*Finance Uncovered (@FinUncovered) is an associate of the #GuptaLeaks investigative team. This article first appeared in The Independent (UK).

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On 9 February 2016, Bell Pottinger sent Gupta lieutenant Santosh Choubey a document entitled “Master Q&A”, a menu of ready-made answers for the media.

In response to the question “Did the Guptas help President Jacob Zuma’s wife, Bongi Ngema-Zuma, pay off her R3.8-million home loan?” Bell Pottinger wrote, “No. This story is completely false. The Gupta family has not assisted Bongi Ngema-Zuma in any way.”

As South Africans have come to expect from Bell Pottinger’s now infamous disinformation campaign, the story, however, was completely true.

Bank records, accounting records and budgets show the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma paying as much as R3.4-million of the bond on the property, after making what appears to be an initial down payment of R1.15-million – giving a total of over R4.5-million.

The younger Zuma’s role in routing these payments suggests he was not in business with the Guptas “on his own accord”, as his father has claimed, but at least partly as a bagman for the Zuma family.

Equally damning, the money trail suggests the president’s wife – and by extension Zuma himself – benefited from the proceeds of corruption laundered from Dubai.

The presidency, Ngema-Zuma and the Guptas did not reply to questions sent late last week.

A gift with a view

Set on the exclusive Waterkloof Ridge that overlooks Pretoria and the Union Buildings, the property was bought for R5.24-million in April 2010 and became Ngema-Zuma’s home.

A person with first-hand knowledge said that the president personally inspected the sprawling property before the purchase. A neighbour said he had been known to visit regularly.

Deeds office records of the transfer identified the Sinqumo Trust as the buyer, and Ngema-Zuma as its trustee.

Named after the president and Ngema-Zuma’s young son, Sinqumo, the trust is more opaque than most. Public lists on the department of justice website, which usually shows trustees and other basic detail, omit the Sinqumo Trust altogether.

In response to earlier amaBhungane attempts to inspect the trust records, the master of the high court in Pretoria, where the records should be kept, maintained they could not be found.

In the absence of the records it is not known whether the president is a trustee alongside Ngema-Zuma or has rights to the trust assets. But even if he has no formal connection to the trust, he arguably benefits given that the property is home to his wife and son.

Six years of denial

R3.84-million of the R5.24-million purchase price was bond financed by Bank of Baroda, the Guptas’ favourite lender.

Given the provenance of the bond, amaBhungane asked a Gupta spokesperson in 2011 whether the family had helped Ngema-Zuma to buy the property by paying the purchase price, facilitating financing or helping repay the bond. He said: “The answer to all your questions is no.”

When amaBhungane confronted the Guptas with additional evidence of their links to the bond in 2012, one of their senior executives dismissed it as “irrelevant” and “absolute rubbish”.

The #GuptaLeaks show that the bond was serviced by the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma generally at a rate of R65,000 a month from the outset.

They also show that on 18 August 2010, the day after the deeds office effected the transfer to the Sinqumo Trust, R1.15-million was paid into Sinqumo’s current account. This is consistent with it being a down payment; the bulk of the difference between the purchase price and the bond amount.

The R1.15-million in turn came from Gupta company Islandsite Investments via Pragat Investments, which at the time was involved in a scandal over the attempted hijacking of iron ore mining rights at Sishen.

Although Pragat was nominally owned and controlled by then Gupta executive Jagdish Parekh, #GuptaLeaks records suggest it was financially integrated with the Guptas’ Oakbay group. Parekh did not answer questions before going to press.

Duduzane, the businessman bagman

When President Zuma appeared in Parliament in June this year, he was pressed by DA leader Mmusi Maimane on Duduzane’s relationship with the Guptas.

Zuma painted his son as an ordinary citizen who was legally entitled to go into business, like anyone else. Duduzane, he said, was “involved in business on his own accord” and that “whoever he does business with, is his own business”.

The #GuptaLeaks evidence strongly suggests that Zuma’s statement was untrue. Whatever business the younger Zuma may have done on his own accord, he also was an apparent conduit for Gupta money to benefit the Zuma family.

Mabengela Investments, a company named after the hills overlooking President Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, is majority owned and controlled by Duduzane Zuma and Rajesh “Tony” Gupta.

Records show that Gupta money was routed through Mabengela to pay the Waterkloof Ridge bond.

So, for example, the same R65,000 amounts that ended up as the first three instalments in September, October and November 2010, can be seen from accounting records to have flowed to Mabengela from Islandsite Investments and Oakbay Investments, both Gupta companies.

Mabengela income statement and budget records show R1.65-million flowing and budgeted to flow from it to the Sinqumo Trust during the 2012/13 and 2013/14 financial years.

Transfer instructions submitted to Absa, as well bank records, show that these “investments”, as they were called, were used to pay monthly installments of R65,000 on the bond during those two years.

In some months, Mabengela directly transferred R65,000 to Sinqumo Trust’s Bank of Baroda accounts. In others, Mabengela transferred the same amount of R65,000 to “D Zuma”, “DZ – BOB” and “DZ”, in apparent reference to Duduzane Zuma.

Trains, cranes and kickbacks

Apart from the monthly bond repayments, Mabengela also paid a R535,000 lump sum to Sinqumo on 2 September 2013.

Of this, nearly a third seems to trace back to offshore Gupta accounts stocked with kickbacks from Transnet contracts.

It would be a serious indictment if bribes were laundered to a sitting president’s wife.

We exposed the alleged Transnet kickbacks in June and July. These included R1.4-billion received from locomotive manufacturer China South Rail (CSR) and at least R55-million from Swiss crane manufacturer Liebherr.

A contract between CSR and a Gupta-related company made it clear the CSR payments were commissions in return for Transnet locomotive contracts. Similarly, payments from Liebherr flowed contemporaneously with Transnet crane contracts.

Gupta accounting records then show the funds flowing into and through their offshore network.

Sitting in the middle was the Guptas’ US relative Ashish Gupta.

In 2013, he was just 26 years old with no apparent business profile. Yet, he somehow had over R100-million at his disposal, which he transferred to Oakbay Investment in a handful of tranches between 30 August and 6 September.

Purportedly, the money was Ashish Gupta’s “advance” contribution for a mining partnership, but there is scant evidence that his money was used for this.

The payments landed in Oakbay’s State Bank of India account. Typically, the cash was immediately disbursed across a number of Gupta company accounts using multiple back-to-back transfers.

Among these, Oakbay paid R150,000 to Mabengela on 2 September 2013. Immediately after receiving the funds, Mabengela transferred R535,000 to Sinqumo’s account at Baroda.

Ten months later, Ashish Gupta’s R100-million was reimbursed by Accurate Investments. Accurate is a Gupta front company in the United Arab Emirates, which by then had received much of the CSR and Liebherr money.

CSR and Ashish Gupta have not responded to emailed questions. Liebherr has said it is investigating the allegations.

The facilitator

While the Guptas repeatedly lied to South Africa about their funding the purchase, there was one entity which was well aware of the true nature of the arrangement and which also had a legal obligation to report suspicious transactions: Bank of Baroda.

Baroda had Ngema-Zuma swear a statement entitled “Information Required by the Bank to Comply with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act”, as part of the process to obtain the bond.

Ngema-Zuma declared that “the source of income/funds to finance the purchase of the property by [Sinqumo] is the following: – own funds and Bank loans”.

Even if Baroda – the Guptas’ long-standing banker – was not at that moment privy to the real source of Ngema-Zuma’s funds, it quickly should have been.

Records suggest the source of the funds was no mystery to Baroda. Regularly, as funds from Mabengela reached Sinqumo’s current account at Baroda, they were immediately used to pay Sinqumo’s bond instalments.

Baroda did not reply to questions.

A curious omission in Zuma’s financial disclosures

Zuma’s history of relying on others to support his family is well known.

His loans from arms-deal convict Schabir Shaik and Durban businessman Vivien Reddy are prime examples.

Zuma disclosed in the public section of his 2009 Cabinet interest declaration that a businessperson provided a luxury home for the use of another of his wives in Durban for free, even though some family benefits may be declared in a confidential section.

Yet, Zuma’s 2014 Cabinet declaration is conspicuously silent regarding Ngema-Zuma’s receipt of Gupta cash. Under “gifts/sponsorships – immediate family”, Zuma indicated under her name: “Nothing to declare.”

In the public section of his 2016 declaration – by which time the Waterkloof Ridge bond was presumably fully paid as it had a five-year term – Zuma declared the “use” of properties on the Durban beachfront and in Forest Town, Johannesburg.

He also declared two books he received – Mastering negative impulsive thoughts and Ethics in decision-making.

A party fit for a criminal enterprise

While countless questions about Zuma’s relationship with the Guptas remain, the #GuptaLeaks do, at the very least, shed light on their relationship with Ngema-Zuma.

In addition to the bond payments, Ngema-Zuma was also employed by the Guptas’ JIC Mining Services for a while as of 2010.

In 2011, JIC chief executive Jacques le Roux told amaBhungane that Ngema-Zuma “contributes in an important way towards JIC’s corporate goals and has the respect and admiration of all her colleagues”.

AmaBhungane and Scorpio can now report that Ngema-Zuma’s last official act at JIC (at least as revealed in the #GuptaLeaks) was to co-ordinate the company’s year-end party in 2011.

In retrospect, South Africans might consider the theme chosen for the evening particularly apt.

On 17 November 2011, Ngema-Zuma addressed an email to her colleagues, requesting that they RSVP.

Ngema-Zuma further noted: “Dress Code for the event is themed ‘MAFIA’.”

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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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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 latest episode of the #Guptaleaks looks at Bell Pottinger, the UK-based PR firm that brought South Africa to the brink of a race war to protect the reputations of the Zumas and the Guptas.

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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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In so doing, the firm directly undermined the ANC’s capacity to communicate its own policies and programmes to South Africans and hijacked the ruling party’s message, seemingly to benefit the image of the Gupta family.

Victoria Geoghegan later invoiced the Marketing Quotient, a Dubai-based company part-owned by Gupta family lieutenant, Salim Essa, a “project fee” of £100,000 (About R2.3-million according to exchange rates in January 2016) for a consultation with Duduzane Zuma.

The two met to discuss a brief for a five-month campaign which Duduzane later described in a reply to Geoghegan as “not primarily one to affect the outcome of the elections [2017] but to turn the tide of our country’s trajectory in the long term”.

Earlier Geoghegan wrote to Duduzane that Bell Pottinger was keen to build a long-term partnership with Zuma and that “we want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in communicating such a vital message for South Africa. The future of the country in terms of fair economic growth, an inclusive society and political stability, depends on it.”

Attached to the mail to Duduzane is a document titled “Reflections on meeting and next steps” in which Geoghegan sets out how she has had time to “reflect on our conversations and now have a deeper appreciation of the focus of the project and the potential for a long-term partnership between us”.

It reads: “1994 was a seminal year in South Africa’s history. The peaceful handover of power raised the hopes of many, and the expectation of imminent political AND economic enfranchisement was justified. The reality is that whilst political freedom has been attained there is a feeling that expectations of economic empowerment have not been met, with the wealth of South Africa sitting within a small grouping.

“With unemployment levels in excess of 20%, with the ANC approaching the 2017 elections following unbroken rule since 1994, with the political opposition (DA & EFF) upbeat there is a feeling that the next big key issue facing South Africa is that of delivering genuine economic empowerment. This feeling is widespread and has been expressed to us in emotive language using phrases such as ‘economic apartheid’ and ‘economic emancipation’.

“Furthermore, given that a lot of current criticism (for almost all of South Africa’s ills) is directed at President Zuma, and indirectly at the ANC, there is a need to explain in clear, unambiguous language that it is vital ‘economic emancipation’ is addressed.

The people of South Africa need to be told that their dissatisfaction is being heard and that concrete actions are being, or will be taken to address them.

“In addressing this issue, the language and psychology used will be crucial. If world markets become spooked by fears of a Mugabe-style programme of asset seizure, then it is all South Africans who will suffer. However, if the message is one of a process that generates wider economic inclusion, using contemporary business models, then ALL South Africans will benefit equally.

“Equally, the message we wish to disseminate is not one that can be sold overnight. For this campaign to be believed and to achieve credibility there will need to be discipline, continuity and consistency over a period, ideally running up to the 2017 elections and beyond. The key to any political messaging is repetition and we will need to use every media channel that we can, to let our message take seed and to grow.

“Below is a set of recommendations based upon an initial project, with the opportunity for further projects to evolve. These tactics are not exhaustive and would be developed into a full and comprehensive strategy.

• Create a non-party political narrative around the existence of economic apartheid and the vital need for more economic emancipation. This narrative should appeal to both potential third party advocates in the business and academic communities and the grass-roots population;
• Provide assistance and advice on the setting up of a vehicle (the ‘entity’) to be the public face of the narrative;
• Whilst the narrative/vehicle is intended to be political party-agnostic, it will create opportunities for political commentary and participation;
• Bell Pottinger will package the narrative into speeches, press releases, website content, videos/broadcast content, slogans and any other material required;
• The initial project would draw on the strengths of both parties:
• Bell Pottinger’s strategic messaging skills, experience, international reach, and overall brand & credibility; and
• This would be complemented by the South African team’s access to domestic media outlets, digital capabilities and its in-country network;
• Utilise compelling research, case studies and data which illustrate the apartheid that still exists, and the need for truly inclusive growth. Bell Pottinger will analyse the data (for example: power generation, ports) and create fact sheets and easily understood collateral for wider dissemination;
• Engage media both domestically in South Africa, and internationally. This will reach both the all-important domestic audience, but also achieve international endorsement which will add credibility to the narrative and feed back into the domestic media also;
• It is critical that the narrative grabs the attention of the grass roots population who must identify with it, connect with it, and feel united by it. In order to reach this audience, the Bell Pottinger and South African teams will need to strategise the appropriate engagement tactics, be this radio, social media and/or slogans e.g. #endeconomicapartheid #growthforall.

“We will draw our team from across the Bell Pottinger Group. The day-to-day account management will be overseen by Victoria Geoghegan, Jonathan Lehrle, Nick Lambert, Darren Murphy (Tony Blair’s political adviser), and supported by a much wider team. Lord Bell will be available for strategic counsel as and when required. We will also have in reserve other divisions (digital, crisis communications) should we need a wider skillset.

“Bell Pottinger is keen to build a long-term partnership with you. Given our deeper understanding of the assets you have at your disposal, we envisage an initial five-month project (February 2016 to June 2016 inclusive), at a fee of £100,000 per month, excluding costs.

“Any costs would be communicated to the South African team in advance, and would not be incurred without your prior approval. Principal costs would chiefly involve travel and accommodation and we envisage a team from Bell Pottinger visiting South Africa each month.

“We hope that this demonstrates our commitment to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the South African team in communicating such a vital message for South Africa. The future of the country in terms of fair economic growth, an inclusive society and political stability, depends on it.”

On January 20, 2016 Duduzane responded to Geoghegan thanking her for her time and for making the trip to South Africa “on such short notice which created an immediate impression of the degree of seriousness from your side and I appreciate that.

You come highly recommended and you represent a powerful brand, I do not take that for granted.”

He writes that he has gone through Geoghegan’s document and, “I am quite happy and enthused by your understanding of what needs to be done and the time frames in which we need to do it in. I have to reiterate that, which you correctly put it, this ‘journey’ is not primarily one to affect the outcome of the elections but to turn the tide of our country’s trajectory in the long term.”

He ends with two requests, one that she forward the invoice to him and also asking for advice on another campaign he appears to be working on.

“It will include dispersing critical information, which I have researched and will share, in a short period of time. It will also require a visual campaign of sorts T-shirts/banners etc. Where I will require assistance whether it be in the designing and creating a hard hitting message along the lines of the #EconomicEmancipation or whatever it is.” 

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Duduzane’s profession on the coveted residency is listed as “investor” and his sponsor “Lion Gate Electronics Trading”.

The permit was issued on October 10, 2015 and expires on October 4, 2018. It was issued a few months before two letters which appear to have been drafted on behalf of President Zuma were circulated between Tony Gupta to Sahara CEO, Ashu Chawla and Duduzane Zuma.

Leaked emails have also revealed that two months later, in December 2015, Duduzane, with the help of the Gupta family, bought an R18 million apartment situated in Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Duduzane, through Wens Holdings Ltd, co-owned with the Gupta family and registered in Dubai bought the luxury apartment.

The unsigned letters, which were written in January 2016, were addressed to “His Highness Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan” and “His Highness Vice President and Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Moktoum”.

Both letters heap praise on the leaders and request their “guidance” with regard to making the UAE a second home.

“I fondly remember our meeting in the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and the gracious hospitality and warmth extended to me during my visit. It is with this sentiment that I am happy to inform you that my family has decided to make the UAE a second home.

“It will be a great honour for me and my family to gain your patronage during our proposed residency in the UAE,” reads one of the letters penned by the Guptas on Zuma’s behalf. Two months later, Zuma visited Dubai as a last-minute stop-over during his visit to Saudi Arabia. At this meeting the President met Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to reportedly discuss a “number of regional issues”.

After the revelations President Zuma through his spokesperson, Bongani Nqulunga, denied that he had any intention of living anywhere else.

“I have my home in Nkandla and I have no intention of living anywhere else. When I retire I will go home to Nkandla. This is a pure fabrication. Duduzane has never spoken to me about living in any other country. He has never shown me any letter. It’s shocking in the extreme. It’s absolute mischief aimed at sowing confusion”.

Obtaining the coveted residency of the UAE is not easy. The first option requires the applicant to have purchased a property valued at no less than 1 million dirhams. This option does not require the applicant to register a company.

In this instance the residency visa is only valid for two years and does not grant the right to work in the UAE.

The second option requires the registration of a company in one of the Free Trade Zones in the UAE. It enables the applicant, as a shareholder of the company, to apply for residency.

This type of visa is valid for three years. In Duduzane Zuma’s case this is the type of residency he appears to have gained. Emails to Duduzane Zuma with regard to his residency have remained unanswered.

The files suggest that the Guptas took care of his every need, from paying for a Mauritian getaway for him and his then girlfriend in 2012, to funding his lavish multimillion-rand marriage to Shanice Stork in April 2015, to setting him up with an R18-million Dubai apartment in the world’s tallest skyscraper, the iconic Burj Khalifa.

The Gupta circle was also privy to some of his most sensitive secrets, with Gupta associate Ashu Chawla seemingly enjoying access to Zuma’s private gmail account, which shows the same ex-girlfriend sending him suggestive pictures just a day after his new wife told him she was pregnant with their first child.

On the night of February 1, 2014, when Zuma lost control of his Porsche on a rain-soaked Johannesburg highway and slammed into the back of a minibus taxi, killing Phumzile Dube, the first person he telephoned was the youngest Gupta brother, Rajesh “Tony” Gupta, the e-mails show.

The #GuptaLeaks also show that when the Sunday Sun approached the Gupta family in April 2015 saying Duduzane had allegedly made another woman pregnant, the Gupta machine was wheeled into action, providing spin from Oakbay chief executive Nazeem Howa.

Later, company lawyer Gert van der Merwe provided advice on the terms of a R3.5-million maintenance settlement for the child and his mother.

Meanwhile, Duduzane flew backwards and forwards, usually first class; drove fancy cars bought by Gupta group companies; or was chauffeured by limousine and stayed in five-star hotels, among them the Oberoi in Dubai and the Hotel National in Moscow.

Gupta lackeys took care of tiresome details, like sorting out travel arrangements – or mopping up the demands for some R180,000 in arrears on municipal charges that he had built up on his Saxonwold abode, around the corner from the Gupta compound.

While various company resources were used in meeting Duduzane’s expenses – including his wedding celebrations at Zimbali and Nkandla – it is not impossible that these benefits were offset somewhere within the Gupta group’s labyrinthine accounts.

They also paid him extremely well: In March 2015 he drew R300,000 per month in director fees, more than any other director, including the Gupta brothers.

What was his value to the Guptas that justified this largesse? Glimpses of this role are visible in the #GuptaLeaks.

On 29 June 2015 at 10:54 Duduzane received an e-mail from a secretive intermediary account, infoportal1@zoho.com, which the e-mail trove suggests was used as a cut-out for sensitive communication with Gupta agents.

The e-mail was a forwarded message from a little-known Free State official, Richard Seleke, who wrote: “Evening sir, please find attached my CV and supporting documents. Regards Richard.”

A few months later Seleke was appointed to the post of director-general in the national department of public enterprises, which has oversight of SAA, Eskom, Transnet and other strategic state-owned companies.

As has previously been reported, the same pattern was followed with the appointment of Mosebenzi Zwane as mining minister.

On Saturday, August 1, 2015 Tony Gupta forwarded an e-mail to Duduzane attaching the “CV of MJ Zwane”, then a Free State MEC already associated with the Guptas via his championing of their controversial Estina dairy project in Vrede.

Duduzane’s father, President Jacob Zuma, appointed Zwane on September 23, 2015 after the incumbent minister, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, became an obstacle to the Gupta campaign to buy the Optimum coal mine.

Ramatlhodi recently revealed that Duduzane had tried to get him to meet the Guptas, but that he resisted their advances.

That is born out by another e-mail, where the chief executive of the Guptas’ JIC mining shares with Duduzane his frustrated efforts to get Ramatlhodi to join an event hosted under JIC mining at the prestigious mining indaba in Cape Town.

We will probably never know if President Zuma signed the draft letters in his name that were sent to his son by senior Gupta employee Ashu Chawla in January 2016, flattering the rulers of the United Arab Emirates and asking for their blessing to make Dubai the Zuma family’s “second home”.

The Zuma name is clearly used to open doors, especially with officials.

On November 16, 2012, Chawla wrote to a Ms Boitumelo at the department of home affairs to try and get work permit waivers, noting: “As discussed with Mr Duduzane I am forwarding you the detail to get the waiver for 3 employees.”

On 17 February 2015, when the Guptas had an issue with the water licence at their Vierfontein mine, Duduzane wrote to an Anil Singh at the department of water affairs.

Singh wrote back almost immediately: “Hi Dudu. My team shall attend urgently and revert asap.”

When the Guptas wanted to impress Indian political figures, they also wheeled out Duduzane, promising the new chief minister in their home state of Uttar Pradesh that the “South African president’s office will be represented for the UP CM oath taking ceremony by his son H E Mr Duduzane Zuma”.

In September 2015 the Sunday Times published a pained but polished letter from Duduzane berating the paper for a critical column written by veteran editor Peter Bruce.

“Bruce refers to me … 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,” Duduzane complains.

Except it wasn’t Duduzane.

The e-mails show that, like so much of the Gupta narrative, the letter was a fake construct, penned largely by Howa, and designed to hide the obvious: a pretty playboy and an ugly truth.

Yes, Mr Zuma, you are a commodity.

• No one named in this story was contacted for comment. This is permitted by the South African Press Code in a situation where a publication “has reasonable grounds for believing that by doing so it would be prevented from reporting”. We invite those named in this article to provide us with comment and clarification after publication.