How Gupta firms ‘bagged millions’

Account records from Standard Bank have revealed an intricate web of alleged money laundering, through which hundreds of millions of rands from state-owned entities were siphoned to small Gupta-linked shell companies.

The commission of inquiry into State Capture on Tuesday heard how the Gupta family and their business associates set up a string of companies that scored massive contracts with parastatals like Eskom and Transnet, and moved money between one another to disguise its source.

Testifying before the commission, Standard Bank’s former head of compliance Ian Sinton detailed a list of transactions since 2014 taken from the accounts of Gupta-linked businesses like Homix, Cutting Edge Commerce, Bapu Trading, Chivita and Regiments Capital.

Sinton said the bank conducted an internal audit of the Gupta accounts after numerous reports of alleged corruption emerged in the media.

In one instance, Standard Bank found that Eskom paid Cutting Edge Commerce about R71m on May 16 2016.

Only three days later, Cutting Edge transferred R10m to the Gupta’s Sahara Computers. Another R10m payment was made to Sahara thereafter, on May 23.

In August that year, Cutting Edge also paid the Gupta-linked Trillian about R18m.

Sinton also revealed the account records of Regiments Capital, which showed that the company received more than R100m in business from Transnet in 2014 alone.

The money was, almost entirely, siphoned off to two Gupta-linked entities, Homix and Chivita – both of which have since been exposed as shell companies.

“There were large transfers into the account that seemingly came from Transnet and shortly thereafter, there were large amounts paid away. Large sums of monies were sent to Chivita Pty Ltd and Homix Pty Ltd,” Sinton said.

The commission will continue on Wednesday with testimony from Optimum coal mine business rescue practitioner, Piers Marsden.