Former Estina director nabbed as Sars and ID probes continue

Two associates of the Gupta brothers, one of them a former director of Estina, were on Tuesday arrested in connection with the multimillion-rand fraud scandal related to the Estina dairy project.

Kamal Vasram — the former director — and Saliesh Indurjeeth, who according to his LinkedIn profile is an accounts assistant, appeared in the Pretoria regional court where they were granted bail of R10,000 each.

The SA Revenue Service and the NPA's Investigating Directorate (ID) said in a joint statement the duo face charges of fraud, contravention of section 54(1)(A) of the International Trade Administration Act and contravention of regulation 22 of the Exchange Control Act.

Their case returns to court on February 11.

Vasram and Indurjeeth were nabbed after a joint investigation by Sars and the ID.

“The investigation established that Estina submitted customs clearance documents (SAD 500 and invoice) in support of a VAT refund claim. The customs declaration was then scrutinised and placed under the proverbial magnifying glass, whereupon the declared value of over R37.7m for a so-called 'new' pasteurisation plant was suspected to be excessively high,” the two entities said in a statement.

“The suspected overpriced pasteurising plant, which was imported from India, was rather invoiced to Estina by Gateway Ltd in the United Arab Emirates. Evidence that is already in the public domain suggests that Gateway was used and controlled by the Guptas, as a conduit to launder money and to extract funds from SA.

“This observation led to a joint investigation between Sars and the ID, in the spirit of co-operative governance and collaboration, as provided for in terms of section 41 of the constitution of SA.

“The state further alleges that the overstated or inflated value was intentionally and unlawfully used by Estina and its sole director to launder funds from SA, to the prejudice of the taxpaying public in general.”

This is one of several arrests that have been made concerning the botched project, which during its establishment by the Free State department of agriculture in 2012 was reportedly supposed to empower black farmers. But allegations later surfaced that the project was being used to swindle cash, with high-profile government officials and the Gupta family being implicated. 

Others who have been arrested concerning the project are ex-department officials and Gupta family associate and businessman Iqbal Sharma. 

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