Who laundered money for the Gupta acolytes and used the opportunity to cash in on State Capture? A new investigative report, ‘The Enablers’, co-authored by Open Secrets and Shadow World Investigations, details the role of bankers, accountants, consultants and lawyers in State Capture. Submitted to the Zondo commission, the report details case studies which are the focus of the next five weeks of Unaccountable. Open Secrets starts with the role of Nedbank and the Bank of Baroda.
Nedbank, like all banks that have appeared before the Zondo commission so far, have preferred to present themselves as victims of State Capture. Nedbank’s Chief Executive, Mike Brown, appeared at the Zondo commission along with other bank executives in 2018 to testify to political pressure placed on the banks by Cabinet to keep Gupta accounts open. All South Africa’s banks were at pains to tell the commission that they retain the right to close the accounts of any client, and that they constantly undertake rigorous due diligence on their clients and their accounts.
What Brown did not discuss, and the commission has thus far not publicly probed, was Nedbank’s long-running relationship with the Bank of Baroda and how this continued long after they had closed their own Gupta-linked accounts.
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