Version imprimableWritten by Khadija Sharife (OCCRP) and Josy Joseph (The Hindu)
India’s state-owned Bank of Baroda — one of the country’s largest — played a crucial role in the financial machinations of South Africa’s politically influential Gupta family, allowing them to move hundreds of millions of dollars originating in alleged dirty deals into offshore accounts, an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP) and The Hindu has found.
The bank’s Indian head office denies any wrongdoing in the affair. But interviews and documents obtained by reporters prove otherwise. The documents show that the bank’s South African branch issued unapproved loan guarantees, quashed internal compliance efforts, and prevented regulators from learning about suspicious transactions in a way that benefited the Guptas network.
This report reveals new details of a scandal that has rocked South Africa in recent months.
The Gupta brothers — Atul, Ajay, and Rajesh, who immigrated to the country from India in the 1990s — are accused of using their money and influence to pursue a project of “state capture,
