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South Africans no longer believed in it. And yet, on Tuesday, June 7, Dubai police confirmed the arrest of two individuals ‘among South Africa’s most wanted suspects’ : Atul and Rajesh Gupta. According to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the two brothers were apprehended on the basis of an Interpol red notice, issued at the request of Pretoria, where they are being prosecuted for fraud and money laundering in connection with a public contract. The case that earned them this arrest represents only a tiny part of what the Gupta brothers are accused of.
Along with their eldest, Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta are at the heart of the most sprawling corruption scandal since the advent of democracy in South Africa. Held responsible for the decline of South African public power with the complicity of former President Jacob Zuma, the siblings of Indian origin are accused of having methodically plundered the coffers of the State for nearly ten years, until to the forced resignation of Jacob Zuma, in 2018, and their flight, hitherto presumed, to Dubai.
More than money, it is power itself that the Gupta brothers are suspected of having embezzled. So much so that South Africa has created an expression to designate the scandal: state capture, “state capture”. Since 2018, a commission of inquiry has heard more than three hundred witnesses tell how the railways, the public electricity company, the tax services or the national airline were “captured” by the Guptas and their associates.
In one of the sections of his report, the conclusions of which are expected in mid-June, Judge Raymond Zondo, head of the commission, describes a Jacob Zuma who has become the puppet of the Gupta, so powerful that they would have offered positions minister or senior official of public companies in their salon. Heard by the commission in 2021, the co-founder of the British NGO Shadow World Investigations Paul Holden estimates the sum of the fraudulent contracts allocated to companies linked to the Guptas at more than 3.5 billion dollars (3.3 billion euros) .
General surprise
In recent weeks, arrests in connection with the work of the Zondo Commission have multiplied in South Africa. With a notable absence: that of the Gupta themselves. The news of the arrest of Atul and Rajesh Gupta could thus be the most spectacular victory of President Cyril Ramaphosa, elected on the promise to end the endemic corruption of the Zuma era. On condition of resulting in an extradition and a trial in South Africa, which is far from certain. The circumstances in which the arrest of the two brothers was communicated – to everyone’s surprise – call for caution.
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