The Gupta money laundromat, plus five highlights from 'Vrye Weekblad'

The Guptas' money laundering apparently continued unabated while the Guptas made money out of Eskom and Transnet or shady government deals. But there was a trail, and Paul Holden, an independent investigator of the non-governmental organisation Shadow World Investigations, showed that when you look properly, you'll find some dirt left on the banknotes.

Holden explained to the Zondo commission into state capture how the Guptas' sophisticated international laundering scheme functioned.

One technique was “smurfing”, where a large amount is divided into smaller ones to look less dodgy. The other was “roundtripping”: to send the money around the world and then bringing it back to the original account. 

Advocate Matthew Chaskalson, of the commission, kept Holden busy for a few sessions with evidence concerning money tricks, the dairy scheme Estina and Transnet.

Read more about the Guptas and more news and analysis in this week's issue of Vrye Weekblad.

Holden, by using bank statements, company records and Reserve Bank transactions to trace the money trail of the dairy farm, explained to the commission that Estina’s money trail makes it evident that the project was nothing but international money laundering. He followed more than 17 bank accounts – abroad and in SA – that could be connected to the Guptas.

Eventually, only R283m was invested in the project, though a superficial investigation found that more than R600m was invested – all thanks to the magic of “roundtripping”, he said.

By 2015, the Guptas moved their money-laundering operations from Dubai to Hong Kong, and this is where Regiments Asia and the Tequesta Group emerged.

Holden said that Gupta friend Salim Essa registered two companies on the same day in 2015 in Hong Kong: Regiments Asia and the Tequesta Group, specifically for handling payments of hundreds of millions of rand from Chinese railway manufacturers.

Holden will later testify further about the Guptas' money trail.

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