Gupta Brothers, now fugitives, brought South African cricket team to Saharanpur

The South African cricket team had just finished a match in Hyderabad and was set to fly for the next match in Bengaluru. An aerial distance of just 500 kilometres. Instead, the Proteas were brought to Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, 1,400 kilometres from Hyderabad, on a chartered flight.

The reason? The Gupta Brothers wanted the stars of the South African cricket team to be displayed in Saharanpur, their hometown. Also on display was their wealth and power.

It was November 2005 and the South African team was in India for a bilateral series with India. It was also the time when the Gupta Brothers were one of the most powerful business families in South Africa.

South African cricketers, including AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis, Graeme Smith, Makhaya Ntini, Andre Nel and Ashwell Prince, in polka-dotted turbans were made to do the rounds of Saharanpur in horse-drawn tongas.

The story of the Gupta Brothers — Atul, Ajay, and Rajesh — started in UP’s Saharanpur and peaked in South Africa. It’s the story of struggle, success and the ultimate downfall of the Gupta Brothers who were among the top businessmen in South Africa and are now fugitives wanted by the government.

The Gupta Brothers are in the news again.

On Saturday, Ajay Gupta and his brother-in-law Anil Gupta were arrested in Uttarakhand after a prominent builder jumped to his death and named the Gupta Brothers in his suicide note.

The arrests in Uttarakhand got the South African government interested. The reason? The Gupta Brothers are one of the most wanted South African fugitives, alleged to have swindled millions of rands from para-statal institutions in the African nation. They were one of the most powerful families in South Africa when Jacob Zuma was the President.

The South African government expressed intentions to engage with the Indian government regarding their case after the news of the arrests of the two Guptas on charges of abetting the suicide of Satinder Singh Sawhney, a prominent builder in Dehradun.

Sawhney named — Ajay Gupta, the eldest among three brothers, and Anil Gupta, Ajay’s brother-in-law, in his suicide note before jumping off his multi-storey building.

A court in Dehradun sent the two to 14 days’ judicial custody on charges of abetting the suicide of Satinder Singh alias Baba Sahni.

Two of the Gupta brothers — Atul and Rajesh — were arrested in Dubai in 2022.

The arrest of Ajay Gupta in India means all three Gupta Brothers are behind bars, albeit in different countries.

How did the Gupta Brothers become so successful and how did they end up as fugitives?

TALE OF GUPTA BROTHERS FROM SAHARANPUR TO SAHARA

The Gupta brothers, Ajay, Atul, and Rajesh, originally lived in a building in Rani Bazar, Saharanpur, Western UP, before relocating to South Africa in 1990.

Their father, Shiv Kumar Gupta, operated ‘Gupta and Company,’ which specialised in distributing soapstone powder. Additionally, he imported spices from Madagascar and Zanzibar through his Delhi-based business, SKG Marketing.

In the late 1980s, his three sons frequently travelled between Saharanpur and Delhi to manage SKG Marketing.

During this period, Atul completed courses on assembling, repairing, and maintaining Apple hardware and became a computer supervisor at a printing company in Delhi. Recognising the potential in the IT hardware business as India began adopting computers, Shiv Kumar sent Atul to China to explore opportunities and establish connections with vendors for importing motherboards.

However, this venture did not materialise as planned, leading the brothers to pivot towards South Africa.

Shiv Kumar Gupta then set his sights on Africa, predicting it would become the next “America of the World”. He sent Atul to explore business prospects there.

Atul arrived in South Africa just as the white minority rule was ending, and the country was opening up to the world, making it easy to start a business.

Despite speaking of their “humble roots”, the Gupta family transferred rands 1.2 million into an account Atul had opened in 1993, shortly after he arrived in South Africa.

With this amount, along with additional millions transferred later, he founded Correct Marketing in 1994, an import and distribution business for computers and components.

With funds sent by his father, Atul opened a shop, followed by another, and eventually established Sahara Computers in 1993. Sahara had an annual turnover of about $22 million and employed 10,000 people.

The Gupta family diversified their ventures into mining, air travel, energy, technology, and the media.

After that, the Gupta family owned the Sahara Estate in Johannesburg, comprising at least four mansions. They have personal security guards and five personal chefs. The estimated value of the mansion is $3.4 million.

GUPTA BROTHERS: RICKSHAWS TO CHAUFFEUR-DRIVEN CARS

The rise and success of the “Gupta Empire” can be seen in the contrasting lives of the brothers and their children.

While the children attend top private schools in Johannesburg, driven by chauffeurs, their fathers once travelled to primary school by rickshaw.

The Gupta family visited Saharanpur and even brought the South African cricket team to the city in 2005.

Atul and Rajesh (known as Tony) Gupta, along with their families, have got South African citizenship. However, the eldest brother, Ajay, and their mother, Angoori, hold Indian passports.

HOW THE ‘GUPTAS’ BECAME ‘ZUPTAS’

Atul Gupta, the eldest of the three, met South African President Jacob Zuma in 2002-03 at one of Sahara’s annual functions where Zuma was a guest.

Rajesh, the younger Gupta brother who arrived in South Africa in 1997 to join the family business, was a “very close friend” and business partner of Zuma’s son, Duduzane.

One of Jacob Zuma’s wives, Bongi Ngema-Zuma, worked for the Gupta-controlled JIC Mining Services, and his daughter, Duduzile Zuma, was a director at Sahara Computers.

As the Gupta brothers built political connections, they also grew their business network beyond computers to include air travel, energy, mining, technology, and media. Their close ties with Jacob Zuma led critics to dub them the “Zuptas”.

However, everything started to unravel in 2016-17 when corruption allegations began to close in on the Gupta family in South Africa.

GRAND WEDDING RECEPTION OF GUPTA BROTHER’S NIECE

In 2013, the family splashed millions on a four-day wedding affair for Vega, one of the daughters of the younger generation of the Gupta family.

Twenty-three-year-old Vega was Achala’s daughter, the only sister to the three brothers.

Thousands of miles away from South Africa, Saharanpur in Western UP was abuzz with preparations for the most extravagant wedding reception the area had ever witnessed.

The Gupta brothers organised the event to celebrate the marriage of their niece Vega, the daughter of Anil Gupta and Achla. Anil, the Guptas’ brother-in-law, had settled with his family in an upscale area of Saharanpur.

GUPTA WEDDING WORTH RS 200 CRORE IN AULI

Uttarakhand transformed into a luxury destination for dual NRI weddings in one of India’s most extravagant weddings.

Ajay and Atul Gupta, South African business tycoons, married off their sons in Auli at 10,000 feet above sea level.

Ajay’s son Suryakant wed a Delhi-based diamond merchant’s daughter, while Atul’s son Sashank married a Dubai-based businessman’s daughter on June 22, 2019.

The lavish event featured performances by Kailash Kher, Kanika Kapoor, and Bombay Rockers, with celebrities like Katrina Kaif, Badshah, and Siddharth Malhotra attending.

The Rs 200-crore celebration made headlines across the country.

After the wedding penalty of Rs 2.5 lakh was imposed on South Africa-based businessmen Ajay and Atul Gupta for littering in Auli, Uttarakhand, during their sons’ weddings.

This included a Rs 1 lakh fine for open defecation and a Rs 1.5 lakh fine for scattering garbage.

Additionally, the municipality also prepared a bill of Rs 8.14 lakh for cleaning up the waste left after the weddings, which were held despite environmental concerns.

JACOB ZUMA FALLS, BRINGS DOWNFALL OF GUPTA EMPIRE

The wealthy Gupta family was accused of exercising political influence in South Africa.

In March 2016, Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas revealed that a member of the Gupta family had offered him the position of Finance Minister in 2015.

Ajay Gupta denied the allegation, stating that he had never met Jonas. “I can say I have never seen him in my life,” he said.

Although he had met cabinet ministers many times at business functions, he maintained that his relationships with government officials were above board.

In 2017, about 1 lakh emails were leaked establishing how deeply the Gupta brothers influenced the Jacob Zuma government. This led to massive protests against the Gupta brothers.

The situation worsened when the opposition brought a no-confidence motion against Jacob Zuma, forcing him to resign as South Africa’s President. Following Zuma’s resignation, the Gupta brothers fled to Dubai.

Jacob Zuma was accused of “state capture,” involving the siphoning off of state assets with the help of the Gupta brothers. Hailing from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, the brothers were so influential that they allegedly dictated government policies during Zuma’s tenure.

The assets of the Gupta brothers in South Africa have been frozen amid ongoing legal battles.

ARREST OF THE GUPTA BROTHERS IN THE UAE

In 2018, the Gupta family fled South Africa after Jacob Zuma was forced to resign as president.

The South African government sought the UN’s help to extradite the Guptas when negotiations with the UAE stalled due to a lack of an extradition treaty. This treaty was finally ratified in June 2021, and South Africa promptly began the process to request the Guptas’ extradition.

In July 2021, Interpol issued a “red notice” for Atul and Rajesh Gupta, accusing them of being part of a vast corruption network in South Africa.

Ajay, the eldest of the three Gupta brothers, is believed to be the mastermind behind the family’s corrupt and fraudulent schemes in South Africa. His younger brothers, Atul and Rajesh, were arrested in Dubai in 2022.

In 2023, the UAE turned down South Africa’s extradition request for Rajesh and Atul, leading South Africa to declare them fugitives. The brothers had built a vast empire in the IT, media, and mining sectors.

Announcing their arrest, the South African Department of Justice and Correctional Services said, “Discussions between various law enforcement agencies in the UAE and South Africa on the way forward are ongoing. The South African government will continue to co-operate with the UAE.”

ELDEST OF GUPTA BROTHERS ARRESTED IN INDIA

South Africa has said it will engage with the Indian government on the arrest of two Gupta brothers in India, one of whom is wanted in South Africa for allegedly looting billions from state-owned enterprises. Two of the three Gupta brothers were arrested on Saturday after a prominent Uttarakhand-based builder, Satinder Singh Sawhney, named them in his suicide note.

The Gupta brothers, Atul, Ajay and Rajesh, are accused of siphoning off billions of rands (South African currency) in South Africa through their close association with former President Jacob Zuma.

The story, which began in India, seems to have come full circle in the country. From Saharanpur to South Africa, the Gupta Brothers rolled in power and wealth. However, the end now doesn’t seem to be going in their favour.