Transfers detailed in
documents shine light on the role of global banks in a scandal that has
consumed South African business and politics
Brothers Ajay and Atul Gupta with President Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane, in Johannesburg in 2011.
Photo:
Muntu Vilakazi/City
zThe documents show money moving among three United Arab Emirates-based firms in January and February 2013 through HSBC accounts while one of the firms was receiving payments from a Chinese rail company with a contract to sell locomotives to a South African state-owned enterprise.
One of the documents, a spreadsheet of bank transactions, shows that the transfers among U.A.E.-based firms were made in dollars and cleared by HSBC in New York.
The spreadsheet and other documents cited in this article were among a trove of emails, bank statements and other documents that appear to have been obtained from Gupta-controlled companies earlier this year. The documents have buttressed longstanding suspicions among many South Africans that the powerful business clan leveraged its connection to President Jacob Zuma and other government officials to amass great personal wealth.
They also underscore the risks for banks of processing potentially illicit money flows.
HSBC said it is determined to keep criminals out of the financial system. It said it “has been reviewing its exposure to the Guptas for some time, and has closed a number of accounts for associated front companies wherever we have found them.”
“This is inherently challenging because those who seek to launder money are often extremely sophisticated, hiding behind legitimate companies, layers of front companies, connected parties and individuals that have controlling interests in the subject companies,” HSBC said.
zThe documents show money moving among three United Arab Emirates-based firms in January and February 2013 through HSBC accounts while one of the firms was receiving payments from a Chinese rail company with a contract to sell locomotives to a South African state-owned enterprise.
One of the documents, a spreadsheet of bank transactions, shows that the transfers among U.A.E.-based firms were made in dollars and cleared by HSBC in New York.
The spreadsheet and other documents cited in this article were among a trove of emails, bank statements and other documents that appear to have been obtained from Gupta-controlled companies earlier this year. The documents have buttressed longstanding suspicions among many South Africans that the powerful business clan leveraged its connection to President Jacob Zuma and other government officials to amass great personal wealth.
They also underscore the risks for banks of processing potentially illicit money flows.
HSBC said it is determined to keep criminals out of the financial system. It said it “has been reviewing its exposure to the Guptas for some time, and has closed a number of accounts for associated front companies wherever we have found them.”
“This is inherently challenging because those who seek to launder money are often extremely sophisticated, hiding behind legitimate companies, layers of front companies, connected parties and individuals that have controlling interests in the subject companies,” HSBC said.
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