This blog was originally written as a test blog for 2oceansvibe News in April 2018.
Do you miss those catchy “Zuma Must Go!” and “Guptas Must Go!” chants? Well don’t worry; they are still a newsworthy bunch. Although the brothers are no longer in the country, the elusive Gupta clan and their cronies came under fire earlier this week when the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) seized properties, cars and even an aircraft or two – all worth more than R250 million and sourced from state funds. They are finally on the way to “paying back the money!”
Via Business Day, here’s a tally of what was captured:
“On Monday, the AFU began to implement a restraining order obtained from the High Court in Bloemfontein against assets deemed to have been bought with money stolen from the Estina dairy project in the Free State.
Also on the list are dozens of vehicles — including several Mercedes-Benzes and Land Rovers, a Porsche Cayenne and a Lamborghini Gallardo — the bank accounts of Gupta-linked companies and houses, businesses and farms across the country. These include the Gupta homes in Saxonwold, which were raided on Monday, as well as houses in Roggebaai and Constantia in Cape Town, and Umhlanga in Durban.
Three aircraft to be seized are the Bombardier jet with the tail number ZS-OAK, a Bell helicopter and a Cessna Citation registered as ZS-AKG.”
Talk about a nation-wide operative.
Earlier this year a few of the top bad guys associated with the Guptas also finally got their day of reckoning for all of their rotten deeds.
“Eight people have already appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on charges of corruption‚ fraud, theft and money laundering for allegedly looting money meant for the [Estina] dairy farm. They are Ronica Ragavan, CEO of Gupta holding company Oakbay Investments; former CEO Nazeem Howa; Ashu Chawla, CEO of the Guptas’ Sahara Computers; Varun Gupta, a nephew of the Gupta brothers; Kamal Vasram, an IT salesman at Sahara Computers, who was the sole director of Estina; and three former officials of the Free State agriculture department.”
The real kicker is how the Estina dairy farm was used for their exuberant misdemeanours. As pointed out by Money Web:
“…the state-owned farm was leased to Estina under a free 99-year contract in 2012. The regional government agreed to help develop it, but earlier this year prosecutors said most of the R220 million in public funds transferred to the company ended up in the hands of the Gupta family.”
The money stiffened from the not-so-innocent dairy farm reportedly went to a shady Gupta-owned company called Gateway in the United Arab Emirates, as well as to pay for the wedding of one of the Gupta’s nieces in Sun City. It seems like at one point they ran out of ideas of how to funnel the funds, leading to the one brother, Atul Gupta stashing R10 million in his personal bank account.
Regardless of the Guptas fleeing SA like the Nazis did to South America at the end of World War II, the brothers and their henchmen deny any wrong doing. Why how dare we come to any conclusions based on all the evidence we have, shame on us.
Source: Business Day & Money Web
Comments