FROM THE WSJ: Guptas used HSBC accounts for transactions linked to suspected SA kickbacks
Transfers detailed in documents shine light on the role of global banks in a scandal that has consumed South African business and politics
South Africa’s Gupta family used HSBC Holdings PLC bank accounts in Dubai to transfer millions of dollars through companies that have been linked to suspected kickbacks for the sale of Chinese locomotives, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The 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 UAE-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 th...
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