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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clear relationship

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

READ: Gupta friends in state’s health pie

But the Gupta Leaks contradicts this claim.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

READ: Dubai: the Guptas’ city of shells

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

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

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

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

Goodbye

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The temple was among these properties.

SPECIAL REPORT: Gupta Leaks

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

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

First stop: Saharanpur

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

The temple was still under construction in January this year.

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

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

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

ALSO READ: Guptas dodge another tax deadline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funnelling the funds

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

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

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

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

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

ALSO READ: Gupta fight goes to Dubai

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Going global

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALSO READ: Dubai: the Guptas’ city of shells

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

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

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

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

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

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.”

• Scorpio is the Daily Maverick’s new investigative unit. If you’d like to support its work, click here.

• The amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism is an independent non-profit. Be an amaB supporter to help it do more. Sign up for its newsletter to get more.

In addition, MultiChoice increased its annual payment to ANN7 from R50m to R141m.

The payments came after the family seemingly assisted former communications minister Faith Muthambi in getting President Jacob Zuma to transfer certain broadcasting powers to her, something MultiChoice was lobbying the minister for.

ALSO READ: #GuptaLeaks: How Ajay Gupta was trusted with crafting SA’s global image

Following the transfer of powers, Muthambi controversially pushed through a decision in favour of unencrypted set-top boxes, which benefitted MultiChoice.

Muthambi’s decision flouted her own party’s policy on the issue. The ANC supported encryption – required for pay-TV – to promote competition in the sector.

After a lengthy court battle, the Constitutional Court earlier this year ruled that it was within Muthambi’s right to make policy decisions affecting the broadcasting sector.

MultiChoice however deny that there is any relationship between the policy outcome in its favour and payments made to ANN7. In a statement, the company said: “MultiChoice rejects your insinuations in the strongest possible terms.”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE COMPANY’S FULL RESPONSE

The #GuptaLeaks reveal that: 

– MultiChoice executive Clarissa Mack (who had since resigned) sent policy documents directly to Muthambi, who shared them with Gupta lieutenant Ashu Chawla, setting out proposals for Zuma to transfer broadcasting powers back to Muthambi after he split the communications portfolio into two departments in 2014;

– In September 2015, six months after Muthambi confirmed there would be no encryption, MultiChoice increased its annual payment to the Guptas’ controversial ANN7 channel from R50m to R141m – at a time when the channel had failed to win a significant slice of DStv’s news audience, and whilst the channel received widespread criticism over the quality of its content;

– MultiChoice CEO Imtiaz Patel was once a director of a company with the youngest Gupta brother, Tony, and Zuma’s son Duduzane. Patel says his appointment was done without his permission, and CIPC records show that he resigned from the company on the same day he was appointed.

New ANN7 owner Mzwanele Manyi, who took over the station this year in a vendor-financed deal, said: “The so-called Gupta emails have NOT been authenticated. What if all this is part of a larger plot designed to undermine alternative voices as in ANN7?”

The Guptas did not respond to questions but have previously dismissed the #GuptaLeaks as “not authentic”.

Pay for Play

MultiChoice has been in the news this week for paying the Guptas R50m per annum for ANN7.

The pay-TV giant denied signing a “third channel amendment agreement” which would have taken ANN7’s annual income from MultiChoice to R150m, but neglected to disclose the existence of a “fourth channel amendment agreement”.

This document was unearthed in-between the more than 200 000 emails that have become known as the #GuptaLeaks.

The agreement was signed by MultiChoice’s Glen Marques and Nazeem Howa for Infinity Media Networks, ANN7’s holding company, on September 9, 2015.

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The agreement not only ensured that MultiChoice would fork out R141m a year for ANN7 from April 1, 2016, but also guaranteed the Gupta-controlled company a “once off amount” of R25m.

This had to be paid to Infinity within seven days of the contract being signed, according to the agreement.

Two broadcasting insiders who had previously been involved in MultiChoice’s negotiations with news channels say such a “once off amount” is unheard of in the industry.

“The once-off fee you refer to is a pro rata payment in terms of an amendment agreement. The amendment agreement was entered into in order to assist with improving production quality,” MultiChoice said about the payment.

ALSO READ: #GuptaLeaks: How the family encircled Lynne Brown

MultiChoice also maintains that its fee for ANN7 represented a “fair value” at the time of signing the fourth contract amendment, given the cost of running a 24-hour news channel.

“After several rounds of negotiations over a period of three years, during which we developed an understanding of the channel’s operating costs and the need for improvements in production quality over time, the final fee was set,” says MultiChoice.

MultiChoice admits that it made policy proposals to Muthambi, but the company says the majority of its suggestions were not taken up in later amendments to government legislation.

The company also denies that it was aware that Muthambi was forwarding MultiChoice’s suggestions to the Guptas.

“MultiChoice has absolutely no knowledge of the minister sending our proposals to any other person, and can in no way be held responsible for that,” says the company.

The issue at hand involves a long-running battle over whether government should favour either encrypted or unencrypted set-top boxes for the country’s digital migration process.

Critics of a policy supporting unencrypted set-top boxes argue that would-be rivals of MultiChoice can only compete with the latter’s DStv service if government enforces the roll-out of encrypted devices.

In December 2013, then-communications minister Yunus Carrim published proposed amendments to government’s digital migration policy that opened the door for encrypted set-top boxes.

But Carrim would not have the last say on the matter.

MultiChoice fingerprints in the #GuptaLeaks

After having created the separate departments of communications and telecommunications in May 2014, Zuma issued a presidential proclamation that transferred certain regulatory powers from Muthambi to Siyabonga Cwele, the then-telecommunications minister.

On July 18, 2014, only three days after the proclamation was published in the government gazette, Muthambi sent an email to known Gupta associate Ashu Chawla. She attached the government gazette containing the proclamation.

Minutes later, Muthambi again emailed Chawla, this time attaching a Microsoft Word document titled “Effect of presidential proclamation”. The document was forwarded by Chawla to Tony Gupta on the same day.

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The document’s metadata reveals that its creator was Clarissa Mack, MultiChoice’s then-group executive for regulatory and policy affairs. Mack created the document on July 17, the day before Muthambi forwarded it to Chawla. Mack was also the last person to have modified the file.

Mack wrote that when Zuma created the two departments, there was an “assumption … that broadcasting including digital migration would report to the Minister of Communications”.

“The proclamation published on 15 July 2014 did not give effect to this division,” complained Mack. She also made detailed suggestions with regards to how the relevant decision-making powers should be split between Muthambi’s and Cwele’s departments.

Mack’s letter made it clear that MultiChoice wanted key powers guaranteed by parts of the Electronic Communications Act to be transferred back to Muthambi.

“Broadcasting is regulated by the Electronic Communications Act, 2005 (Act No 36 of 2005). The ability to make broadcasting policy and issue broadcasting policy directions are set out in section 3 of this Act. These powers have been transferred from the Minister of Communications to the Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services,” Mack stated.

“It is therefore the Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Service [Cwele] who will make policy and issue policy directives to Icasa for broadcasting, including public service broadcasting,” Mack added.

Muthambi lobbies the Guptas

Over the course of the next few months, Muthambi would send Chawla four other documents relating to broadcasting policy. Chawla forwarded most of these to Tony Gupta and Duduzane Zuma, the president’s son.

On July 25, Muthambi sent Chawla a Word document called “proclamtion [sic] new 18 July 2014”.

MultiChoice has admitted that this document was also penned by Mack.

Chawla forwarded the document to Tony Gupta and Duduzane Zuma on the same day. The document stipulated in detail which aspects of the Electronic Communications Act Muthambi wanted to be moved from Cwele back to her.

“These sections must be transferred to the Minister of Communications,” Muthambi wrote to Chawla.

The document specifically focused on the parts of the Act dealing with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), one of the key government bodies involved in the digital television migration process.

ALSO READ: #GuptaLeaks: How the Guptas paid for Zuma home

Muthambi also sent Chawla a Word document called “Responsibility for Infraco and Sentech” on July 25, adding in her email that “Sentech’s signal distribution must rest with the Ministry of Communications”. Apart from Icasa, Sentech is a key role-player in the digital migration process, whilst Broadband Infraco is a state-owned telecommunications company.

This document was also created by Mack, according to MultiChoice.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Muthambi’s communications with Chawla came in the form of a document called “final proclamation 01 August”, sent by the minister to the Gupta associate on the date mentioned in the document’s title.

“See attached Proclamation that President must sign,” Muthambi wrote Chawla, who subsequently forwarded it to Tony Gupta.

The proposed proclamation stipulated that control over section 3 of the Electronic Communications Act needed to be transferred back to Muthambi, exactly as Mack had originally pleaded in her letter.

It also included the proposed changes to the Icasa Act that Muthambi had earlier sent to Chawla.

Asked whether Mack had also created this document, MultiChoice said: “As mentioned previously, MultiChoice, like other companies in the sector, regularly engages the industry regulator and government on matters that affect the broadcasting sector. This includes making proposals that may take a specific regulatory or legislative form. Yes, this document was sent to Ms Muthambi. The proposals were inserted in a legislative template we took from previous Proclamations in the Government Gazette. Again, many of our proposals were rejected.”

Muthambi uses her powers

On November 25, Zuma signed proclamation 79 of 2014. With the stroke of a pen, Zuma gave legislative effect to the transfer of some of the powers advocated for in Mack’s documents.

Muthambi wasted little time to make use of her newly-won policy powers. In March 2015, she stunned the broadcasting industry by issuing an amendment to government’s digital migration policy that went directly against her own party’s stance on the matter.

The new set-top boxes would “not have capabilities to encrypt broadcast signals,” declared a clause Muthambi inserted in the amendment.

Only two months before, at the ANC’s January lekgotla, the ruling party stated that it supported Carrim’s December 2013 policy, which had paved the way for encrypted set-top boxes.

In her response to News24, Muthambi admitted that she had received “submissions” from MultiChoice “sent … through Ms Mack”. But Muthambi says that she had “opened the door” for such submissions after the July 2014 proclamation caused “confusion and uncertainty” over which of the two departments would be responsible for broadcasting policy.

“The minister denies having been influenced by any person in the finalisation of the digital migration policy after consideration of all submissions by all interested parties…” Muthambi’s spokesperson said in a statement.

MultiChoice also said that it was one of “several stakeholders” who made submissions to the minister. Neither MultiChoice nor the minister indicated which other parties, apart from MultiChoice, made submissions to her office.

Muthambi also failed to address News24’s detailed queries about the emails she had sent to Chawla.

ANN7’s MultiChoice bonanza

On December 4, 2014, about a week after Zuma transferred the relevant broadcasting policy powers to Muthambi, Howa sent Tony Gupta a draft “third channel amendment agreement” for the deal between MultiChoice and Infinity.

This is the unsigned document that recently surfaced in the media.

The signed “fourth channel amendment agreement”, however, reveals that MultiChoice first agreed to increase the ANN7 fee to R100m per annum, before ultimately settling on an amount of R141m.

But it is the “once off” payment of R25m that has industry insiders most concerned.

“It is unheard of. I haven’t seen any once-off payments [in] any of the agreements with MultiChoice that I’d been privy to,” said one of the industry insiders.

The two sources, along with a third industry expert with direct knowledge of MultiChoice’s agreements with news channels, all agree that even R50m per year would constitute a bad investment for MultiChoice.

“What they pay ANN7 compared to what they get from it [the agreement] makes no commercial sense. It is such a bad channel and its viewership is so low that ANN7 actually needs to pay DStv to be on their platform,” said one of the sources.

Data obtained from the Broadcasting Research Council (BRC) shows that ANN7 secured only 8.93% of DStv’s news audience in 2014, and 10.98% in 2015. Its average daily viewership figures for 2014 and 2015 were 6 215 and 8 157 respectively.

SABC News held news audience shares of 19.90% (2014) and 22.46% (2015) and it drew 12 379 and 15 412 average daily viewers in those two years.

eNCA’s average daily viewership was 29 481 (2014) and 32 265 (2015) and it had a news audience share of 54.28% in 2014 and 52.71% in 2015.

Despite ANN7’s relatively low audience figures, MultiChoice maintains that it believed the fee increases were justified.

“We believe the fee represented fair value at the time, particularly considering that ANN7 was a start-up channel requiring significant initial investment to get off the ground – as opposed to others, who could leverage existing infrastructure and content,” said MultiChoice.

“We deny that there is any relationship between our submission on the proclamation, the channel supply agreement for ANN7, and any fees or increase in fees paid for that channel.”

Asked about his relationship with the Guptas, Patel said he couldn’t remember when he first met the Guptas.

“I did interact with them, in particular between approximately 2007-2010, and our relationship tapered off after that. I can’t recall attending any Gupta social functions after about 2010, except for the wedding in 2013,” said Patel.

• Do you have information for our investigative journalists? Send an email to tips@24.com 

• News24 is published by Media24. Both Media24 and MultiChoice are Naspers companies.

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The Gupta family and some of their associates have established an extensive network of front companies in and around Dubai that has been used to conceal and allegedly launder hundreds of millions of rands in dubious payments linked to government contracts in South Africa.

A News24 investigation has confirmed that at least six Gupta-linked companies registered in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are shell companies that either list fraudulent addresses or whose business premises are rarely, if ever, manned by actual employees.

At least R760m in payments linked to contracts from South African state-owned companies and government departments were channelled through some of these companies, documents contained in the #GuptaLeaks have shown.

News24 travelled to Dubai to try and establish whether any of these companies at the centre of alleged money laundering linked to state capture actually exist.

– Dubai: The Guptas’ city of shells

Our investigation has confirmed what some South Africans with knowledge of the Guptas’ business dealings have long feared, namely that the Guptas and some of their associates are deliberately flushing alleged ill-gotten gains through their shell companies in the UAE because of the country’s strict financial secrecy laws and favourable tax provisions.

The Transnet millions

One of the companies News24 visited is JJ Trading, which, according to earlier #GuptaLeaks reports, received at least R760m in alleged kickbacks from large Chinese companies contracted to Transnet, South Africa’s state-owned rail and logistics operator.

Unlike most of the other Gupta-linked shells, JJ Trading actually has a website. It describes the company as a trader in “agro products” and scrap metal.

The website also lists an address for JJ Trading in the Hamriyah Free Zone in Sharjah, about 50km north of Dubai. Hamriyah is one of more than thirty free zones, or free-trade zones (FTZs), located in the UAE. These zones allow businesspeople from abroad to establish companies with 100% foreign ownership and also offer attractive tax perks.

However, when News24 visited the Hamriyah Free Zone’s main entrance, the guards on duty told us that no company by the name of JJ Trading has premises there.

The queries we sent to the email address and the cellphone number provided on the company’s website went unanswered.

Milking the Free State

We also tried to locate the offices of Global Corporation, Accurate Investments and Fidelity Enterprises.

These three Gupta shells were used to launder tens of millions of rands in proceeds from the Free State provincial government’s failed Vrede dairy project in order to ultimately help pay for the Guptas’ lavish wedding party at Sun City in 2013, according to an investigation by amaBhungane.

Payments from Accurate Investments to Brookfield Consultants, a US-based company linked to relatives of the Guptas, have also attracted the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Financial Times recently reported.

According to documents in the #GuptaLeaks, Global Corporation and Accurate Investments supposedly share the same address in a building next to a lagoon in the Emirate of Sharjah, Dubai’s neighbouring emirate.

But the address led us to a residential tower, and the guard at the reception informed us that there are no companies operating out of the building.

Fidelity Enterprises, which processed more than R30m of taxpayers’ money milked from the Free State diary project, also turned out to be nothing but a front. Business owners in Al Quoz, an industrial area south of Dubai’s city centre where the company is supposed to be located, told us that Fidelity’s address is incorrect and that they’ve never heard of such a company in the area.

Nobody home…

When we did manage to find an actual office for one of the Gupta shells, Griffin Line General Trading, the door was locked and there was nobody inside.

The company is situated in an office tower in Dubai’s main business district and, if its website is to be believed, trades in rice, spices and other foodstuffs.

But judging by documents in the #GuptaLeaks, Griffin Line has mainly been used to settle some of the Guptas’ accounts with travel agents and hotels.

An office worker from another company on the same floor told us that they sometimes see a woman at Griffin Line. We sent the company queries through a portal on its website, but it went unanswered. The Guptas also did not respond to queries emailed to them.

News24 ultimately spent a week chasing from one Gupta-linked company to the next without encountering a single employee.

For a network of companies that has received nearly a billion rand in revenues linked to public expenditure in South Africa, the Guptas’ UAE-based businesses are eerily deserted.

*News24’s trip to the UAE was made possible by a grant from the Taco Kuiper Fund for Investigative Journalism, administered by Wits Journalism.

On the surface, Dubai is one of the world’s great success stories.

Its towering skyscrapers and glaring opulence bear testimony to a desert boom-town that has experienced nearly unrivalled economic growth in the last few decades.

But the shiny office blocks, luxury hotels and colossal shopping malls conceal a decidedly seedier side to the city; a darker character that exhibits all the traits of a modern day tax haven.

According to the Tax Justice Network’s 2015 Financial Secrecy Index, Dubai “stands out above many other jurisdictions in terms of its lack of interest in transparency, and the laxity with which its offshore sector is supervised and regulated”.

It also has an “ask-no-questions, see-no-evil” approach to commercial transactions, financial regulation and crimes.

The report also highlighted Dubai’s reputation for attracting “large quantities of criminal and tax evading money from Asia, Africa and further afield”.

The story of the globe’s illicit cash flows would not be complete without looking at how it relates to South Africa – in particular to the Gupta family.

SEE: The Guptas’ bogus Dubai businesses 

There has been much speculation about the amount of rands that travelled across South African borders to the Guptas’ new base in Dubai.

The #GuptaLeaks have clearly shown that the Gupta brothers and their close associates have amassed a considerable collection of companies and properties in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Find all you need to know about #GuptaLeaks here

The network of shell companies established by the family was apparently put to good use when they needed to conceal and process the vast fortunes they’d siphoned off from government contracts in South Africa.

Dubai has a well-known reputation as a play place for the rich.

It boasts the world’s tallest building, and its premier shopping mall counts among the largest ever built.

One expat we met described the city as a “Disneyland for adults”.

Thanks to this combination of world-class amenities, upmarket shops and a conveniently opaque financial system, Dubai represents a perfect fit for South Africa’s famously profligate Gupta family.

The #GuptaLeaks have helped to unearth staggering details on how the Guptas and their associates moved the dubious proceeds of state tenders in South Africa to their collection of shell companies in and around Dubai.

We travelled to Dubai to see what the Guptas’ new base was like. We also hoped to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanics of their network of shell companies.

Shell shocked

Our first stop was a considerable distance out of town. We were looking for a scrap metal dealership inside the Hamriyah Free Zone, a large industrial area located next to a golf course and otherwise surrounded by the desert’s soft, powdery sand.

JJ Trading, or JJT, the first Gupta shell on our list, should have been a thriving business.

Apart from its scrap metal activities, the company received at least R760 million in revenue linked to Transnet port crane and train tenders.

However, the security guards at the boom gate had never heard of JJT and advised us to go into the office.

A sign outside indicated that it was the Hamriyah Free Zone.

We were assured that they would have a list of all the businesses inside the Free Zone.

But JJT was not on any such list.

“I don’t know this company,” said the guard behind the desk. “Call them [JJT],” he suggested.

Other than on paper, the company did not appear to exist.

Webster’s New World Finance and Investment Dictionary describes a shell corporation as a “company that has legal status but provides no service or products and has few, if any, assets”.

“Shell companies may be set up for illegal purposes, such as tax evasion, or formed in anticipation of attracting funding,” according to the dictionary.

We concluded that this definition applied to JJ Trading.

The Hills have eyes

We arrived in Dubai at night and the first thing we saw was the dazzling luminance of a trail of skyscrapers that marched into the distance.

One of these colossal structures stood out among the rest.

It was the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Its head-turning height was obvious even at night, with its massive frame etched against the backdrop of a dark horizon.

As the metro train carried us from the airport into downtown Dubai, the city’s monetary abundance became increasingly visible.

It was as if the emirate’s riches had been poured into its structures.

The city’s developers clearly believe in the adage ‘the bigger the better’, as evidenced by the row of concrete, steel and glass giants that engulfed us as we entered the central business district.

The impressive skyline represents an overwhelming abundance of money, an unapologetic display of wealth that lay as far and wide as the glittering lights allowed our eyes to see.

True to their spendthrift ways, Tony Gupta and his two older siblings chose Dubai’s most expensive house in the most exclusive area when they bought their first property in the city in 2015.

Villa L35 in the Emirates Hills estate is the perfect sanctuary for the Guptas, and the family did not mind parting ways with a cool R331m for the property.

In order to get to Emirates Hills, one needs to drive past yet another golf course.

Only those who’ve experienced the city’s formidable heat could fully appreciate the volumes of effort and water that must go into the maintenance of these oasis-like playgrounds.

It was 41 degrees Celsius on the day of our visit to Emirates Hills. According to some of the locals we spoke to, this constituted “cool weather” compared to the summer months.

A boom gate with cameras and security guards confirmed that we had arrived in one of Dubai’s wealthiest suburbs.

Emirates Hills is a sprawling residential development, so we had quite a distance to cover between the entry point and Guptas’ villa.

But the drive was by no means boring, with the view of mansions of every shape and size serving as our entertainment during the car ride.

Even on such a blistering hot day, the Guptas’ house looked cool, thanks to the trees and plants around the villa.

A family crest on the fence showed that this was indeed the Gupta residence.

We wondered what one would encounter if one were to venture beyond the house’s Indian-style arches and the line of lanterns outside, and finally through the impressive wooden door that keeps unwanted visitors at bay.

But we couldn’t hang around for too long. A group of men who looked like security guards were sitting in the garden, and our presence had drawn their attention.

We duly told our taxi driver to move along.

King of the mythical beasts

During the same time that the Guptas started shopping for a house in Dubai, they were also in the market to rent office space.

One of the potential commercial addresses mentioned in the #GuptaLeaks was an office in the financial district.

However, it was on the opposite, slightly run-down side of the highway, away from the glitzy buildings that top companies prefer to occupy.

Listed on a name board at the reception of the Al Moosa Tower was the name of the Gupta-linked company we were looking for: “Griffin Line General Trading”.

While the company is said to trade in rice, the leaked emails reveal that the Guptas mainly used its accounts for travel bookings.

There is a paper sign on the glass door, bearing the company’s name. Its emblem is a bird of prey that has its eye in the shape of a “G”.

The griffin – a mythological half eagle, half lion creature -was thought to be the king of all the beasts.

This obscure shelf company’s name probably speaks volumes about how the Guptas view their position in the business world, we joked.

We knocked on Griffin Line’s door and tried to open it.

But the door was locked, and there was no response to our knocking.

The word “hello” was scribbled in blue on the company’s printed sign.

We obviously weren’t the first people to have come here, only to find an empty office behind a locked door.

As we were about to leave, a woman came out of an office on the opposite side of the floor. We asked her if she knew anyone at Griffin Line.

“Only one lady works there,” she said.

“She comes and goes. I don’t know her name.”

This description of the scant activity at Griffin Line seemed wholly at odds with the thriving rice business it was made out to be on its website.

Milk and money

One of the key Gupta companies in the UAE is Fidelity Enterprises.

It is registered in Jebel Ali, one of the UAE’s free zones that allow foreign businesses to operate in the country.

Fidelity holds shares in Mabengela Investments, a key shareholder in Infinity Media Networks, which in turn owns ANN7.

It is also one of the Gupta shell companies that saw nearly R32m from the Free State’s failed Vrede dairy project travel through its bank accounts, only to eventually end up with the Guptas’ Oakbay Investments back in South Africa.

WATCH: Inside the controversial Gupta Free State dairy farm

According to documents in the #GuptaLeaks, Fidelity is supposed to be located at “plot no 358 – 615” in Al Quoz, an industrial area just outside Dubai’s city centre.

Our taxi driver sounded confused when we gave him the address. He knew Al Quoz, but he explained that it was a part of town mostly filled with warehouses.

The driver dropped us off at the first warehouse he saw. It was a car workshop.

A mechanic with a sweaty brow was working on a red Lamborghini. When we showed the address for Fidelity Enterprises to the woman managing the workshop’s office, she frowned. Addresses there didn’t work that way, she explained.

There were no “plot” numbers for the area. We went outside and looked at all the warehouses around us.

The way in which the addresses were formulated bore no resemblance to Fidelity’s supposed address.

Whoever registered Fidelity clearly had no intention for the company to ever be found.

Going global

To get to the next Gupta shell on our list, we needed to travel some 18km to the north of downtown Dubai.

Global Corporation LLC is supposed to be located in a building next to an azure lagoon in Sharjah, one of the UAE’s seven emirates.

Like Fidelity Enterprises, money from the Free State diary project had also been washed through Global Corporation’s bank account.

We asked the security guard at the front desk for Global Corporation.

“This is a residential building. People come here all the time looking for businesses but there are no businesses here.

This is an apartment block. People live here,” he told us. He thought there might be another building somewhere nearby whose name contained the word “lagoon”.

But after asking another taxi driver familiar with the area and searching the internet, we concluded that Global Corporation’s address was a sham.

Sea shells

SAS Global, yet another Gupta shell, is the sole shareholder in a South African company that appears to be benefitting from provincial government tenders in South Africa, as revealed in the #GuptaLeaks.

The company’s address is in the HDS Tower, a 39-storey office block in Dubai’s Jumeirah Lakes area. We asked the building’s security staff for SAS Global and gave them the office number.

“No, you mean GBS Global,” one of the guards insisted. We nodded.

Sure, GBS Global it is. By then, we already knew that the chances of finding a real office were slim.

The first thing we noticed after getting out the lift on the 13th floor was how many empty offices there were.

We found a woman sitting at GBS’ reception desk. It looked like she was the only person there.

A GBS brochure stated that the company offers company incorporation services “in tax efficient offshore jurisdictions around the world”.

The woman had no idea who SAS Global was.

We had now been at the addresses of five Gupta “companies” without encountering an actual office.

Companies behind companies

The culture of secrecy is so tightly woven into Dubai’s corporate fabric that asking even basic questions about companies is frowned upon.

Trying to obtain simple information such as the name of a company’s directors or their contact details proved to be a near-impossible task.

This once again became clear when we went looking for SKG Holdings, a Gupta shell company that supposedly bears the initials of Shiv Kumar Gupta, the Gupta brothers’ late father.

The company’s registered address is in the Al Fattan Currency House, an elegant office block in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

The building is a glass affair with spotless, blue-tinted windows.

A small army of window cleaners dangling from ropes had no doubt recently cleaned the structure’s slick exterior, as we’d seen it being done at buildings across Dubai.

However, the Al Fattan Currency House’s physical transparency stood in sharp contrast to the murky nature of the business conducted inside the building.

Once again, our lift opened onto a floor with a number of empty offices.

The address for SKG Holdings led us to a company called Intertrust – a firm that registers and incorporates companies inside the DIFC free zone.

SKG is one of their clients, an Intertrust employee told us.

We explained to her that we were struggling to get hold of SKG’s directors and asked her if she could provide us with any useful details about the company.

“Sorry. It’s an SPC. A Special Purpose Company,” she said.

She was unable to provide us with any further information.

All that glitters…

An expat we spoke to told us that the reason he chose to make Dubai his new home is because one can’t help but look up. You look up to the skyscrapers and the constant blue sky and you become aspirational.

“Of course,” he whispers, “everyone also knows that a large part of the city is built on dirty money from African dictators and Eastern European gangsters. It’s just that nobody talks about it”.

The metro train ride from our hotel back to the airport later afforded us a final view of Dubai’s soaring skyline. Our search for the Guptas’ companies had taken us into some of the glass and steel towers that were now rolling past the carriage’s window.

We couldn’t help but wonder how many of the companies in these buildings were nothing more than empty offices with printed signs stuck on locked doors.

The Guptas’ network of UAE front companies may very well be just one tiny component in an elaborate, glittering city of shells.

News24’s trip to the UAE was made possible by a grant from the Taco Kuiper Fund for Investigative Journalism, administered by Wits Journalism.

Private jets, sprawling mansions and eye-wateringly expensive weddings are lifestyle features associated only with those who possess vast personal wealth.

Yet for three years in a row, 2011, 2012 and 2013, the Gupta brothers appear to have convinced the South African Revenue Service (SARS) that they were taking home less than R1-million in personal income annually.

SARS documents from the #GuptaLeaks email trove show that for 2011 to 2013, Ajay, Atul and Rajesh (Tony) Gupta declared taxable income which rarely exceeded R1-million per year, on which they paid PAYE and nothing further.

In 2011, for instance, Rajesh Gupta declared R965,000 in taxable income, with R315,670 going to PAYE. In 2012, Ajay Gupta declared R935,000, of which R299,196 was taxed. In 2013, Atul Gupta declared R1,087,616, of which R376,186 went to PAYE.

Three years later, Atul Gupta would be placed 7th on the Sunday Times Rich List, named as South Africa’s richest black businessman.

A tax expert who spoke to Scorpio on condition of anonymity said that the relatively small amounts of declared personal income were impossible to square with media reports of the Guptas’ lifestyles.

From at least 2010, the Guptas were attracting media attention for both their close ties to President Jacob Zuma and their apparent taste for the high life.

It is well known, for instance, that the Saxonwold mansion which the Guptas call home in South Africa is a sprawling property: a three-storey building with a kitchen on each floor.

It was previously described by Saxonwold and Parkwood Residents’ Association urban planner Craig Pretorius as “a kind of a large guesthouse – a private hotel… with a cinema and spa”. It also features a helipad and cricket pitch, and has previously been valued at over R16-million.

The 2013 Sun City wedding of the Guptas’ niece Vega, meanwhile, attracted a flurry of headlines for its opulent flavour. A typical report from the Sunday World at the time, for instance, quoted a Sun City insider as saying: “They are spending millions.”

TV programme Top Billing subsequently devoted a full episode to footage from the wedding:

We now know from the #GuptaLeaks emails that much of the cost of the Gupta wedding was classed as a business expense through the Gupta-owned company Linkway Trading.

Evidence from the email trove suggests that it was standard practice for the Guptas’ personal expenses to be funded through their companies. This is in itself highly irregular.

“You are not allowed to put personal expenses through a company, finish en klaar,” the tax expert told Scorpio. “Every expense a company deducts must be shown to be in the production of that company’s income. If it cannot [be shown], then a fringe benefit tax is applicable.”

The expert explained, for instance, that even if a Gupta-owned company were paying the monthly bond on the Saxonwold property, the employees who were benefiting from this system – in this case, the Guptas themselves – would have to pay fringe benefit tax.

There is no evidence of this happening from the Guptas’ tax returns.

Given the volume of highly public information available about the Guptas, red flags should have been raised at SARS about the amounts they were declaring in taxable income. “

SARS gleans its information from the press,” the tax expert said – and there has been no shortage of Gupta-related press in South Africa over the past seven years or so.

Asked by Scorpio if the Guptas were ever subjected to a lifestyle audit by SARS, the revenue service’s spokesperson Sandile Memela responded via email: “In line with the spirit and letter of the tax legislation… SARS cannot divulge specific information and details on the affairs of taxpayers.”

The tax expert explained that what generally happens when SARS “feels like something’s not right”, in terms of a discrepancy between lifestyle and declared income, is that SARS will send the individual in question a request for a basic statement of assets and liabilities.

If that fails to assuage doubts, SARS will proceed with a lifestyle audit, in the course of which one is required to fill out a multipage questionnaire dealing with the minutiae of your income, assets and expenses.

The Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, promulgated in 2004, allows for investigation into individuals who appear to own property disproportionate to their income.

It states that such an investigation may be ordered if a person “maintains a standard of living above that which is commensurate with his or her present or past known sources of income or assets”.

In 2012, a SARS compliance programme document stated that it was focusing on high net worth individuals.

“Our preliminary sampling exercise has shown that under-declaration of income is an area of concern, where an individual’s declared income is not consistent with their asset base,” that document stated.

“To date, 467 potential wealthy individuals have been identified where there are discrepancies between their asset base and declared income, and they can expect much closer scrutiny from SARS.”

The Guptas had become a household name in South Africa by 2013. Important questions thus remain about how the brothers were permitted to pay such a relatively low level of tax for multiple years concurrently.

“Tax morality is critical for the country,” SARS’ Memela told Scorpio in a statement. “It is therefore critical for all South Africans to be law-abiding citizens who are seized with ensuring and promoting compliance to the tax laws of the country.”

All South Africans – but not the Guptas?

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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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The #GuptaLeaks have already revealed how German software multinational SAP turned to the Guptas in their hour of need to clinch a R100-million contract from Transnet.

Now emails and documents show a second German company, Software AG, entered into an apparent kickback agreement with a Gupta-controlled company in an attempt to secure a R180-million contract from Transnet Freight Rail.

In a pattern that is becoming familiar, Software AG agreed to pay Global Softech Solutions (GSS) up to 35% of the value of the contracts it secured with Transnet, the department of correctional services, Mangaung municipality, Sasol and MultiChoice.

The Guptas’ Sahara Systems was in the process of buying into GSS, an IT services company, at the time.

But, as the saying goes, there is no honour amongst thieves.

The #GuptaLeaks also provides evidence that Software AG’s high-powered sales director, Riaaz Jeena, created a second sales commission agreement seemingly to ensure that he too would receive a slice of the pie.

Software AG is one of Europe’s largest software companies – last year it boasted €872-million (R13-billion) in worldwide revenue.

Like SAP, Software AG appeals to have been willing to pay huge amounts of money to a Gupta-controlled company under the guise of “commissions” in the hope of unlocking huge contracts from the state.

In SAP’s case, this meant paying R100-million to CAD House, a small outpost of the Gupta empire that sells 3D printers.

With both SAP and Software AG there is little evidence that the Gupta companies contributed much beyond their political influence.

The Guptas did not respond to requests for comment. Software AG confirmed the partnership with GSS, but denied wrongdoing.

October 2014: The Mangaung deal

In 2014, Software AG was trying to replicate a fantastically lucrative deal it signed with Ekurhuleni – this time with Mangaung municipality in the Free State.

Ironically, it was Lawrence Kandaswami, the now-suspended managing director of SAP South Africa, who first introduced Software AG to GSS in October that year.

Although SAP and Software AG are competitors, Kandaswami appears to have been willing to act as go-between, passing information about the Software AG deal to GSS and the Guptas’ Sahara Systems, which was in the process of buying a 50% stake in GSS.

After receiving Kandaswami’s emails, Sahara’s Santosh Choubey passed them up the chain to Gupta lieutenant Salim Essa with the message: “The same can be replicated exact solution in North West and Limpopo.”

Software AG was close to finalising the Mangaung deal, Kandaswami explained, but was now facing opposition from the municipality’s chief financial officer, who wanted an open tender. (The municipality insists it went no further than an initial presentation.)

The #GuptaLeaks provide no detail of what Essa did with this information, but the #GuptaLeaks reveal that in the months to follow, GSS became Software AG’s chosen partner on a number of potentially lucrative opportunities.

March 2015: Sensational signs of a retro-kickback

Although Sahara Systems would only formally take up its shareholding in GSS by September 2015, minutes of monthly meetings show that by March that year already it was firmly in control of GSS.

On 4 March, Choubey sent GSS’s new budget to Essa and Tony Gupta. It included four Software AG deals with potential revenue just for GSS of R56.9-million by December 2015 and another R54-million by December 2016.

The largest was a R180-million project for Transnet Freight Rail. The Mangaung deal that Software AG was having trouble closing was also on the list.

The commission agreement that Software AG would eventually sign with GSS allowed GSS to claim “referral fees” and “sales assist fees” for helping Software AG identify leads and helping Software AG close these deals.

But it appears someone else was also cutting themselves a slice of the commission payments.

Attached to a 9 March 2015 email sent by Choubey to another Gupta lieutenant, Ashu Chawla, is a draft agreement between GSS and Sensational Signs, a small company in the south of Johannesburg that manufactures steel frames for billboards.

A partnership between a Gupta IT company and a billboard company is odd enough, but the content of the draft agreement is even more suspect.

Dubbed a “Prospect Lead Provider Fee Agreement”, it promised to pay a “finder’s fee” of between 4 and 15% to Sensational Signs for identifying potential software deals or “leads” for GSS.

“In the event that [Sensational Signs] identifies Lead but elects to not actively pursue the sales cycle itself, but rather to refer such Leads to GSS, Sensational Signs shall be eligible to receive a Lead Provider Fee,” the agreement reads.

The obvious question is what kind of leads would Sensational Signs be able to identify for an IT company?

The answer is hidden in the metadata.

Since Sensational Signs was registered in September 2014 Mohamed Mobeen Jeena has been its sole director. He happens to share a surname with Software AG sales director Riaaz Jeena.

It is not clear what their exact relationship is, but records show that at various times the two Jeenas have listed the same unit in a complex in Winchester Hills as their residential address.

Although the draft agreement was between GSS and Sensational Signs, the document properties showthat it was Riaaz Jeena who drew up the document on his Software AG computer.

And although Software AG was not mentioned by name anywhere in the agreement, the wording of the Sensational Signs agreement appears to have been lifted directly from Software AG’s own contracts.

Also, the potential deals listed in the four-page annexure are the same four leads listed in the GSS budget that Software AG was already pursuing: Transnet, Mangaung municipality, Sasol and MultiChoice.

It appears that what Riaaz Jeena was effectively putting in place was a retro-kickback agreement – a scheme designed to make sure that the person paying a kickback gets some of it back for himself or a nominee.

On the Transnet Freight Rail deal, for instance, GSS was potentially agreeing to pay R27-million to Sensational Signs as a “finder’s fee” for supposedly identifying the lead and passing it on to GSS.

On the Mangaung deal, the Sensational Signs agreement anticipated that GSS would take a 35 percent (R13.65-million) cut from Software AG while Sensational Signs, though not even in existence when the German multinational made its initial pitch to Mangaung, would be entitled to 10 percent (R3.9-million) supposedly for “finding” the deal.

Detailed questions were emailed to both Riaaz and Mohamed Jeena. Riaaz Jeena was “out of the office” all week and did not answer calls on his cellphone, while Mohamed Jeena terminated the call when told it was from amaBhungane.

May – July 2015: Software AG rolls out the red carpet

By May 2015, as the opportunities rolled in, Software AG and GSS were still formalising their new partnership.

Unlike CAD House, the Gupta-company implicated in the SAP scandal, GSS at least had a track record in the software industry.

“As part of extending the company skill set I attended the training courses … in Software AG learning academy,” GSS’s founder and one-time chief executive Leela Yemineni explained via email. “I started the partnership application with Software AG in November 2013 and company attained partnership in February 2014.”

But a “Power Up Partnership” agreement that was presented to GSS in May that year represented a major step up. In terms of the agreement, GSS would be recognised as a “co-sell” partner.

• Read the draft agreement between Software AG and GSS that would give the Gupta-controlled company a significant chunk of the German company’s software deals.

The Power Up agreement did not detail the percentage that GSS would earn from Software AG, but the Sensational Signs document estimated that GSS’s share would be between 22.5% and 35%.

Software AG sales director Riaaz Jeena now also had an additional connection to GSS – in April, his wife, Fehmeda Alibhai, had started working for Sahara Systems. Minutes show Alibhai was now present in all the GSS monthly meetings where the Software AG deals were discussed.

Although the Power Up agreement between Software AG and GSS was in most respects a standard sales commission agreement, the question is what GSS brought to the party to justify the more than R100-million in commissions it expected to make according to its budget.

The agreement was clear that “Software AG will not accept leads that have already been … identified by Software AG itself.”

In the case of the Mangaung, it is clear that Software AG had identified the deal long before GSS came into the picture.

This was confirmed by Mangaung communications manager Qondile Khedama, who said in an email: “Software AG South Africa … made a presentation to the city’s management team in July 2014.”

The Sensational Signs document also makes it clear that the deals on the list were not new – some were scheduled to be finalised in less than 30 days.

However, in terms of the Power Up agreement GSS could still earn a sales assist fee if it “actively drives [the] majority of the sales cycle with Customer”.

However, most of the customers we approached claimed never to have heard of GSS.

The Sasol deal

Sasol’s group head of media relations, Alex Anderson, said Sasol first approached Software AG in February 2015 and later invited Software AG and three other bidders to submit proposals.

“Sasol was not aware of GSS as an organisation nor of GSS’ involvement and association with Software AG. Sasol did not engage at all with GSS… All engagements … were through Software AG directly,” Anderson said in an email.

Despite both GSS and Sensational Signs being missing in action according to Sasol, the Sensational Signs document shows that GSS, the company controlled by the Guptas, expected to earn R10.5-million from the Sasol contract, R4.2-million of which would flow to Sensational Signs, the billboard company.

Sasol said no contract was awarded in the end.

The MultiChoice deal

Like Sasol, MultiChoice says it had also never heard of GSS or Sensational Signs.

“MultiChoice concluded a contract with Software AG in 2015 for the provision … of a number of IT related services,” general manager of corporate affairs Jackie Rakitla said.

“All payments in terms of the contract are made to Software AG and to no other entity. Global Softech Solutions (GSS) is not mentioned in the above contract. MultiChoice has no relationship with GSS…

MultiChoice is also unaware of any alleged agreement between Software AG and GSS. As far as we can ascertain, none of our employees or authorised representatives have met with GSS or Sensational Signs.”

Yet, according to the Sensational Signs document, GSS expected to earn R4.5-million from Software AG for the contract, of which Sensational Signs would get R1.5-million for “finding” the lead.

• Read the Sensational Signs agreement here.

Unlike Sasol, the MultiChoice deal did actually go ahead and a GSS spreadsheet details how the money appears to have flowed.

On 2 July 2015, Software AG paid R3 805 597 to GSS with the reference “MultiChoice deal”. The following day, GSS made two payments: One of R1.71-million (R1.5-million plus VAT) to Sensational Signs and another of R1.48-million to a company called Forsure Consultants. Both listed as a reference “MultiChoice deal”.

Little is known about Forsure Consultants except that it shares an address in Mayfair and a former director with Homix, the Gupta-linked letterbox company that amaBhungane previously revealed received kickbacks from Neotel and other companies on Transnet contracts.

The #GuptaLeaks spreadsheet also recorded that GSS transferred another R798 000 to Sahara Systems with the reference “MultiChoice deal”.

The Transnet deal

The only instance where GSS seems to have played an active role was at Transnet Freight Rail.

“Transnet received an unsolicited proposal from Software AG and Global [Softech] Solutions for the provision of a demurrage system…” Transnet spokesperson Viwe Tlaleane confirmed.

Transnet bills clients for demurrage fees when a scheduled rail trip cannot go ahead because of delays on the client’s side. The proposed system would help Transnet to increase the amounts it collects.

“At the time, [Transnet] did not have a structured way of determining demurrage fees, and saw the value in having a system that would enable it to ensure effective and optimal use of its rolling stock,” Tlaleane said.

This resulted in Transnet entering a pilot project with Software AG and GSS in 2015.

“The contract is commission based and fees will be determined by revenue generated by Transnet on a percentage that is less than 50%.”

The draft agreement between GSS and Transnet found in the #GuptaLeaks indicates that GSS would receive between 49.5% and 50% of the revenue generated for Transnet: a potential R263-million in total. Software AG would receive a royalty for providing the software.

Although GSS was supposed to be the main partner on the deal, email exchanges show that it was Software AG and Jeena, its sales director, that drew up GSS’s proposal for Transnet.

Although Transnet said the pilot project was ongoing, Software AG’s Cassoojee denied any knowledge of it: “Software AG has not generated revenue from any of the references made in your request … apart from one Private Sector transaction which we cannot disclose… All other Proposals have subsequently expired and we have not entered into any additional agreements with GSS since December 2015.”

The prisoner deal

In addition to the four opportunities already identified in GSS’s budget and the Sensational Signs agreement, emails show Software AG was also pushing for Sahara Systems to submit a bid for a prisoner tracking system.

Software AG appears to have been hoping to sell Software AG’s products and GSS’s services to the department of correctional services (DCS) by using its new partner’s political connections.

“I want you guys to get all the services business more than anything else on this deal… I don’t have an idea on the size of the [software] license deal implications as yet, but the services would be huge on a deal like this!” Software AG partner manager Joanne Foster told Sahara’s Choubey in an email, before adding: “Do you have contacts and leverage @ DCS?”

• Email from Joanne Foster regarding the DCS deal.

Foster ignored requests to comment. AmaBhungane previously reported the contract was awarded to another politically-connected company.

Another kickback?

It is not clear how much flowed from Software AG to GSS as several of the opportunities identified did not materialise. But there is very little evidence that GSS earned its fees by identifying leads or doing the sales legwork.

As with SAP, the Software AG commission agreement comes across as stage-managed to disguise payments to politically-connected people and their companies, in essence an apparent kickback for helping Software AG to secure business.

Software AG South Africa’s Cassoojee responded in writing: “Software AG prospective Partners undergo a stringent verification process that ensures Partners are able to add value to the customer… Software AG is committed to conducting its business fairly, impartially, in an ethical and proper manner, and in compliance with all laws and regulations.”

Cassoojee did not, however, offer any insight into how GSS added value to its customers when three out of four potential customers claimed not to have heard of the company.

We also asked if Software AG sanctioned Jeena’s side deal between GSS and Sensational Signs. Cassoojee did not respond and none of the questions sent to Software AG’s head of corporate communications globally, Byung-Hun Park, went answered since our first email on 26 June.

We also put this allegation to Yemineni. He said via email: “Sincerely I was not involved in sales and finance from mid of 2014. Apologies.” He also said he had formally left the company in 2016.

In May 2016, Sahara Systems sold its 50% stake in GSS to Futureteq, which at the time was owned on paper by Imtiaz Emmamally and Fehmeda Alibhai. Circumstantial and source evidence suggests, however, that Futureteq is effectively controlled by the Guptas.

Either way, this potentially places Alibhai — Jeena’s wife — in prime position to benefit if the Transnet contract goes ahead.

Transnet’s Tlaleane told us: “The trial period is set to expire late this year and [Transnet] will make a decision on whether or not to roll out the project in full.”

For now, however, GSS seems to be keeping a low profile. Its phones went unanswered all week; emails sent to official GSS email addresses bounced back; and a visit to GSS in Rivonia turned up an empty office.

Detailed questions were put to Emmamally, Alibhai and Gupta spokesperson Gary Naidoo, but none responded.

Meanwhile, SAP has confirmed that the international law firm it hired to investigate allegations that it paid kickbacks to the Guptas will also look at a December 2015 bid amaBhungane previously reported on, where SAP planned to subcontracted 60% of an R800-million Transnet software contract to GSS as its “supplier development partner”.

SAP’s Ansohpie Strydom said: “The investigations cover SAP’s entire South African operation, and include a review of all contracts… SAP has committed to sharing the results of the investigations once they have been completed.”

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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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