Campaign launched to bring Guptas back to South Africa to face robbery charges

Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, who are accused of occupying the kingdom largely because of their proximity to former President Jacob Zuma, fled to South Africa when the net was turned off in the face of massive public protests against them, leading to Eventually the African National Congress (ANC) ousted Zuma and appointed Cyril Ramaphosa as acting president. Ramaphosa was later returned to the post after the election.

Gupta and his family are believed to be living in Dubai, with which South Africa signed an extradition treaty in June this year, but little progress has been made on the country’s request to bring them back as warrants for their arrests. Huh.

There is also speculation that some of the family members may be in India.

Launched by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation (AKF), the campaign received pledges of support from several organizations fighting corruption, both locally and abroad.

As the investigation into the cases continues, AKF president Derek Hannekom said earlier claims that billions of rupees were looted from state institutions were “disappointingly inadequate”.

“Reports received a few years ago about the estimated amount of money that our economy had done through state annexation proved to be a disappointingly low estimate. Now, we are talking anything up to a trillion rand which is a factor in the various sectors of our economy. Was lost in forms,” ​​Hannekom said.

“We know that the Guptas played a fundamental role with the full support of the then President of the country and various ministers of state,” he said.

He said, ‘It is a mockery of justice that the Gupta brothers, who stole so much from our country, are roaming freely in any other country of the world. We want to see justice done – they are effectively fugitives from justice. We need international cooperation to ensure that, with respect to the Gupta brothers, justice is done and seen,” Hannekom said.

AKF executive director Shan Baltan said the Gupta brothers were the most stressed in the commission of inquiry into the occupation of the state initiated by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Earlier on Thursday, the commission, led by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, announced that its report would be submitted to Ramaphosa on January 1, 2022.

“The blueprint (the Guptas) created, or perhaps perfected, has been spread across the country, leaving us with a continuation of this issue, which will now be resolved,” Balton said. year, the Foundation will issue an “Orange Book”, listing all the organizations and individuals that have been involved in the annexation of the state.

“Orange” refers to the color of the overalls worn by prisoners in South African prisons as standard dress.

Frank Chicane, who ran the Defend Our Democracy campaign three years ago, said the Guptas had corrupted not only parastatals but also security and intelligence agencies to evade arrest.

“When you do that, it’s the equivalent of a coup,” Smooth said.

Wayne Duvenhej, CEO of the Organization Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), said even four years after the massive hiding of documents called the ‘Gupta Leaks’, evidence was still emerging that made it possible for the Guptas to access billions. Rand of South African taxpayers’ money.

Peter Hahn, a veteran anti-apartheid activist who led the struggle from Britain in the 1970s after being pursued by a minority white government, sent a message of support from there.

“We should also insist that banks such as HSBC, Standard Chartered and Baroda Bank surrender digital trails that will show where Gupta and Zuma stole their money,” Hahn said.

When all major South African banks stopped working with the Guptas, they only got support from the local branch of Bank of Baroda, which later closed its South African operations citing global restructuring.

Hahn said lawyers who assisted the Guptas, mainly in Dubai, Hong Kong and the Caribbean, should also provide full details of their involvement in money laundering.

Other organizations pledged their support for the campaign, including the NGO’s Right 2 Know and Corruption Watch, the Communist Party of South Africa, Shadow World Investigation and the US-based Action for Southern Africa.

Gupta arrived in South Africa from Saharanpur for the first time in 1990, marking the beginning of democracy after the release of Nelson Mandela. A small shoe store in Johannesburg rapidly expanded into a national business empire in the information technology, media and mining sectors.