South Africa: five Gupta clan suspects are out of the country

Five suspects wanted by the South African police in the vast scandal of embezzlement and corruption related to the Gupta family are “out of the country,” said the Minister of Police, Fikile Mbalula on Sunday.

These wanted people would be in China, Dubai and India, said the minister in an interview with the public broadcaster SABC. These revelations took place a few days after the issuance of an arrest warrant against one of the brothers of the sulphurous family of Gupta businessmen, close to Jacob Zuma who was forced to resign Wednesday from his post President of the Republic.

According to local media reports, one of the Zuma sons, Duduzane, a businessman associated with the Gupta brothers, is said to be one of the five wanted suspects and will be in Dubai, which the police minister has refused to confirm.

On Wednesday, the police raided a wealthy Gupta family house in Johannesburg and arrested eight people for fraud, money laundering, and theft of public money for a dairy project.

According to a report by the mediator of the Republic published in 2016, the three Gupta brothers were involved in managing the affairs of the South African state, from the appointment of ministers to pressure to obtain lucrative public contracts.
Their ownership of Saxonwold had become a kind of bis presidency, where the brothers of Indian origin offered ministerial posts, according to several reports collected by the mediator.

This huge scandal has helped bring down President Jacob Zuma, who was forced by his party, the African National Congress (ANC), to resign on Wednesday night. He was replaced on Thursday by Cyril Ramaphosa, the head of the ANC, who pledged to make the fight against corruption one of his “priorities”.