Who paid R20 million for the Gupta’s rundown Constantia mansion?

South Africans want to know who would pay R20 million for a dilapidated mansion once belonging to the country’s most wanted and corrupt brothers, the Guptas, who are still on the run.

So far, all we know is that an international investor snapped the property.

The Guptas thatched roof mansion, where Monterey Drive intersects with Dawn Avenue in the heart of Constantia in Cape Town, remained empty for years on end falling to decay and ruin as it waited its fate, following asset seizures of the controversial family’s properties.

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Five bedrooms

The massive house which boasts five bedrooms was bought by the Guptas in 2005 for about R17 million.

 It was seized in 2021, after the Investigating Directorate of the National Prosecuting Authority obtained an interim order to secure assets belonging to the Gupta family.

The Gupta family’s expansive business holdings in South Africa encompassed diverse sectors such as mining, media, and technology. Their family name has become emblematic of corruption, undue influence, and state capture within the country.

Aerial footage of the home on the Hardie Property website shows the extent of disrepair the house currently in.

The thatched roofs can be seen with massive sections having fallen down. The pool is green and murky. Overgrown grass and weeds shoot out from the once paved areas.

The inside is no different. Paintwork has now faded in sections of the rooms and walls are dust-covered. Left-behind furniture look like it has seen better days. The tiles on the main balcony look cracked, with a number of them missing.

According to Hardie Property, the agency that sold the house, the property has a guard house, swimming pool and a pool room, garaging and a separate one bedroom cottage.

The mansion will cost a considerable amount to bring it back to its former glory.

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The house previously belonged to Mark Thatcher, the son of the late prime minister of the United Kingdon, Margaret Thatcher.

In 2005, he received a suspended prison sentence of four years and was fined in South Africa for his involvement in financing an attempted coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea in 2004.

In 1998, South African authorities probed a business owned by Thatcher amid suspicions of conducting predatory lending activities. As reported by the Star of Johannesburg, the company had purportedly provided informal, small-scale loans to numerous police officers, military personnel, and civil servants, subsequently employing debt collectors to recoup the funds.