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A man dubbed "Mo Dollars" is allegedly the mastermind behind three companies the Zondo Commission says were used to launder money and funnel cash out of the country, according to an Al Jazeera investigation.
The Zondo Commission highlighted the companies - Varlozone, Zokubyte and Coral General Traders - but did not identify who ran them. The commission found that Varlozone facilitated payments to the Gupta's Dubai-based Griffin Line Trading, that were linked to the deal to buy Optimum Mine.
"From late July 2015 until July 2017, the Gupta Enterprise made use of an extraordinarily busy and complex money laundering network. [Investigator Paul] Holden dubbed this network the ‘spider web," the Zondo Commission report says.
Al Jazeera reported it has documents that show that the person behind the companies was Mohamed Khan or "Mo Dollars", who also allegedly helped cigarette don and alleged gold smuggler Simon Rudland smuggle millions abroad. Al Jazeera also alleged that Khan bribed employees at Sasfin Bank, who he made payments through.
Dawood Khan, Mohamed’s brother, told Al Jazeera that his brother was behind the payments.
"Varlozone, Zokubyte, Coral, they all played the same role," Dawood told Al Jazeera. "You couldn’t utilise the same account on a daily basis. So, you would spread your funds across different accounts at different times across the week or a month."
Khan told Al Jazeera that the allegations against him were false, and denied everything. Griffin Line Trading, which was identified in the Zondo Commission report as "a Gupta family company" told Al Jazeera it was not owned by the Guptas and had no links to Khan.
Sasfin Bank told Al Jazeera it was taking action against suspended and former employees, while Simon Rudland said that the allegations were part of a smear campaign.
News24 reported earlier in the week that the United Arab Emirates denied South Africa's application to extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta, who were arrested in Dubai on charges of money-laundering and fraud.
