South Africa-based gold mafia helped corruption-accused Gupta brothers launder money: Report
Gupta brothers
A week after a United Arab Emirates court rejected South Africa's request to extradite the fugitive Gupta brothers, a damning report has named a well-known launderer that helped the Guptas siphon off state assets. The report published by Al-Jazeera namedone Mohamed Khan, also known as Mo Dollars, as the one who allegedly pulled the strings from behind.
Khan is dubbed as the missing link in the case and the one who helped the Guptas bleed the country's exchequer dry. He is part of the gold mafia that is into smuggling and money laundering gangs operating in Southern Africa, the publication claimed.
After the lid was blown over the corruption saga of the Gupta brothers, the South African government formed an investigation panel named the 'Zondo Commission' in 2018. The panel identified three companies viz., Varlozone, Zokubyte and Coral General Traders as the epicentre of the fraud and capture of state funds.
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However, the investigators never managed to identify the lynchpin who operated these fraudulent companies. Notably, the report claims that Khan, through his companies, transferred the looted money abroad on behalf of the Guptas. The money used to vanish soon and the investigators were left chasing nothing but invisible air.
The investigators made a connection when they found out that money funnelled through Varlozone went to Griffin Line General Trading — a Dubai-based company which was reportedly owned by the Gupta brothers. However, upon investigation, they found Varlozone was owned by Shah Bukhari who was only a frontman.
“We were basically looking at the flow of money into this network from the state capture and we knew it was going through a money laundering network,” a Zondo Commission investigator was quoted as saying by the publication.
The report alleged that Varlozone managed to launder as much as $1.8m of state capture money over a six-month period while Zokubyte laundered at least $600,000. Coral General Traders,the third company, acted as a temporary safe space for the funds which was parked there before being moved offshore.
WATCH |Gupta Brothers nabbed in UAE | Duo wanted in $1.6mn fraud
The money was moved using a process called 'merchanting' wherein fake invoices are created to insinuate that advance payment is being made in lieu of the import of goods. The reports claims thatSasfin Bank and its employees were in on the money laundering scheme. Khan had allegedly bribed the bank employees and the money used to flow through it without any hassle.
“Varlozone, Zokubyte, Coral, they all played the same role.You couldn’t utilise the same account on a daily basis. So, you would spread your funds across different accounts at different times across the week or a month," saidDawood Khan, Mohamed’s brother.
When the publication approachedMohamed Khan, he deniedthe allegations sayinghe had never met the Gupta brothers and declined using any of the companies identified to launder money.
The Gupta brothers
The two brothers named Atul and Rajesh Gupta were arrested in the UAE last year and face charges of political corruption involving former South African president Jacob Zuma. However, last week, South Africa'sJustice Minister Ronald Lamola informed that the Arab nation had refused to hand them over.
"In the evening of the 6th of April 2023, we were provided with a note verbale from the UAE in which we learnt with shock and dismay that an extradition hearing had been concluded in the UAE courts on the 13th of February 2023 and our extradition request was unsuccessful," said Lamola.
The UAE court noted it had the jurisdiction to prosecute the Guptas for money laundering offences that were carried out in the Arab country as well as South Africa.
The Gupta brothers have been accused of building a huge business empire in myriad fields such as media, mining andcomputer equipment — primarily due to the help of Zuma who also helped siphon off state assets from South Africa. According to reports, Gupta's cauldron of corruption may have cost the South African exchequer as much as $3.2 billion.
(With inputs from agencies)
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