Hawks say they’re working on bringing Ajay Gupta back to SA

The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, better known as the Hawks, say they are working on bringing back Ajay Gupta to the country after he was spotted on Wednesday morning in Dubai outside the Indian consulate.

In a video that has gone viral on social media, South African businessman Justin van Pletzen had an encounter with Ajay and asked him when he would return to the country to answer to state capture allegations.

Gupta said he would cooperate with law enforcement agencies only once they “give him a reply”.

“They’re not giving a reply. The day they give a reply, I’ll go there,” he said.

Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi told eNCA this morning the priority crime unit was working with various agencies to bring the Gupta brothers back to South Africa to face corruption charges.

The Hawks announced in February that a warrant of arrest for Ajay had been issued in relation to corruption.

“We are on the ground, and we are working very closely with Interpol. We are able to track their movements, but we have a lot of cases that we are still dealing with that involves him [Ajay], we are not even afraid to say that,” Mulaudzi said.

Mulaudzi said the Hawks were waiting to finalise all the cases that they are investigating involving Ajay and his two brothers, Atul and Rajesh ‘Tony’ Gupta, before they could look at options of extraditing them back to SA.

“It will be best that we finalise all the cases so that we bring him back for all the other cases.

“If we bring him back for one case, it means then that in terms of the law we cannot charge him or bring him back for other cases. It’s best that we do our proper due diligence in all the cases, then we can bring him back,” Mulaudzi said.

The controversial Gupta brothers and former president Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane, are accused of exerting undue influence on Zuma in connection with the appointment of Cabinet ministers, and board members of state-owned entities, as well as allegedly siphoning government tenders to enrich their business empire.

Zuma resigned late on February 14 after the ANC’s national executive committee took a decision to recall him from office as the country’s state president.

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