The father of the Gupta brothers, Shiv Kumar Gupta, owned a tiny shop that sold government rations, or subsidized food, here in Saharanpur. He was a pious, somewhat idiosyncratic man, who tossed bread to stray dogs from the basket of his bicycle on his way to the old temple every day, and he often spent nights meditating in its crematory.
But he nurtured grand ambitions. One day, Mr. Gupta called over his oldest son, Ajay, to recount a newspaper article on the war between Iran and Iraq. The price of rice had skyrocketed there because, he told his son, all the traders had left the countries.
“But somebody is going in,” Ajay recalled his father saying. “He’s getting this advantage because there’s no competition.”
[Here’s a guide to our recent reporting on corruption in South Africa.]
In the 1980s, few people in Saharanpur left to seek their fortunes in places like China, Russia or South Africa. Most went to big cities like New Delhi, or to Britain or Canada.
But to people who knew the family, the father’s mind-set reflected that of the family’s caste, the Banias, or traders. The brothers spoke proudly of their background, explaining why they were such good businessmen.
So Ajay, who had already set up a computer import business in New Delhi, followed his father’s advice and went looking for opportunities in Russia, China and Singapore.
The middle brother, Atul, went to South Africa in 1993, right before it became a democracy. He kept going back, despite his family’s misgivings.
“He alone was the bullish one,” Ajay recalled. “He loved the place.”
In the years before and after the end of apartheid, South Africa, rattled by violence and political killings, seemed to be slipping into civil war. Many people with means, especially white South Africans, were packing into planes to London or Perth.
But others — exiled South Africans and fortune-seekers — were flocking in. True to his father’s teaching, Atul settled in Johannesburg and sold shoes downtown. Then he started a company — Sahara, named after the family hometown — importing computer parts and assembling them for sale.
And by chance, he made a personal connection to the A.N.C. that would prove far more consequential.
During a trip home to India, Atul met a South African of Indian origin in New Delhi: Essop Pahad, the right-hand man of Thabo Mbeki, who was then Mr. Mandela’s deputy.
In an interview, Mr. Pahad recalled that he had ordered some tailor-made Nehru-style shirts. But he had to return to South Africa before they were ready. Atul volunteered to pick them up and personally deliver them to Mr. Pahad’s office in Johannesburg. After that, they ran into each other at functions at the Indian consulate.
“He talked about Ajay a lot,” Mr. Pahad said. “Then I said, ‘Who is this Ajay of yours?’”
Planting New Roots
By then, Ajay was head of the whole family.
With their early ventures overseas, the Gupta brothers had found some success and bought their father his first car: a creamy white Contessa, the biggest made in India.
But their father died a year later. Only Ajay made it back home in time to say goodbye. An hour before Mr. Gupta died, he gave his watch and ring to Ajay, who wears them to this day.
With the responsibility of the family on his shoulders, he eventually moved everyone to Johannesburg.
When Mr. Pahad finally met Ajay, he was immediately impressed. Ajay got the big picture in South Africa, and seemed to understand that there was a place in it for the Guptas.
In fact, the opening was vast, and Ajay exploited it masterfully.
In the late 1990s, as Mr. Mbeki prepared to become president, the A.N.C. government was worried about the enduring power of white South African businessmen and dependence on Western nations. Forging ties with countries like India and China could lessen their influence, Mr. Pahad said.
Black South Africans had gained political power. But the white business elite, led by officials at Anglo American, had protected its own interests in the new South Africa.
Long before the end of apartheid, Harry Oppenheimer, the head of the mining company, had led efforts to create — and co-opt, some historians say — a black elite.
When Mr. Mandela was released from Robben Island in 1990, Anglo American executives visited him at his home in Soweto. Other businessmen followed, to Mr. Mandela’s delight, according to an authorized biography describing how he stayed at the estates of white tycoons and accepted gifts from them.
Mr. Mandela was particularly close to Mr. Oppenheimer, who gave him money, said Michael Spicer, a former executive at the company.
“Harry would say, ‘It’s important for the country that Mandela not be fussed with all of these problems,’” Mr. Spicer said
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But nothing was free.
Mr. Oppenheimer put together a team of economic advisers for Mr. Mandela called the Brenthurst Group — named after the Oppenheimers’ palatial estate in Johannesburg. In meetings, A.N.C. leaders joined the country’s top white businessmen to set the nation’s post-apartheid economic course, Mr. Spicer said.
Soon enough, Mr. Mandela, who had supported nationalizing the economy, endorsed pro-business policies. Some historians argue that the policies contributed to South Africa’s income inequality, and to an economy still based on cheap black labor.
But after becoming president, Mr. Mbeki moved to dampen the power of white businesses. He created his own group, which met at his residence each month, Mr. Pahad said. It included cabinet ministers, top businessmen, rising stars in the A.N.C. and an unknown figure: Ajay Gupta.
Ajay said he enjoyed the meetings. Mr. Mbeki sometimes even dropped by for lunch.
Only a few years after settling in South Africa, Ajay had forged links to the highest levels of the A.N.C., thanks to his friendship with Mr. Pahad.
Mr. Pahad said that he had appointed Ajay to the group to help build ties to India, but that he had asked nothing of the brothers.
After leaving government, however, Mr. Pahad acknowledged receiving favors from the family, including a loan of about $140,000 for a house, seats on the boards of two Gupta companies and help in starting a magazine.
As the brothers’ ties to the A.N.C. strengthened, their businesses began flourishing.
In the early 2000s, they got their first big break: They won a large government contract to set up computer laboratories in schools in the nation’s richest province.
Then they went on a buying spree, acquiring a struggling information technology company that helped them become one of the biggest computer distributors in South Africa.
They later bought a uranium mine, a steel manufacturer and other businesses.
By the time Ajay was invited to join a separate advisory group — this one established by the Oppenheimers’ foundation — he had a private plane, an eight-seat Hawker, said Mr. Spicer, who once hitched a ride aboard it.
“The Guptas’ plane flew in, the Oppenheimers’ plane flew in,” Mr. Spicer said. “And, yes, there was always a bit of whose is longest.”
The Gupta family home in Saharanpur now lies in ruins. The Gupta brothers rose almost magically to become one of the richest families in South Africa. Their fall has been just as dramatic.
Hedging Their Bets
Even as the Guptas thrived off their ties to Mr. Mbeki’s allies, they were reaching out to his archrival, Mr. Zuma, the No. 2 in the party.
The two leaders fought bitterly. So Mr. Pahad, Mr. Mbeki’s right-hand man, was surprised to learn that the Guptas had cultivated ties with the other side.
“They were having some function at their home, and Ajay said to me, ‘Do you mind if we invite Zuma?’” Mr. Pahad recalled.
Money was an unspoken dynamic in the battle between Mr. Mbeki and Mr. Zuma: Who in the A.N.C. had gotten rich since the end of apartheid? And, perhaps more important, who had not?
Mr. Mandela and some others — including South Africa’s current president, Cyril Ramaphosa — became wealthy, in part through connections to white business leaders.
During Mr. Mbeki’s tenure, his allies got their chance, often by directing the course of the country’s Black Economic Empowerment policies, which required white businesses to take on black partners.
So when Mr. Zuma became president in 2009, it was his faction’s turn.
But Mr. Zuma, plagued by personal and political scandals, was distrusted by the white business establishment. And more than a decade after apartheid, many white businesses felt they had done enough to help — a sentiment that angered people close to Mr. Zuma.
“Should Anglo be allowed to say, ‘We’ve assisted Cyril Ramaphosa, so exonerate us?’” said Mosebenzi Joseph Zwane, Mr. Zuma’s former mining minister. “No, no, no.”
One path to riches was still clear, though: government coffers.
The Guptas hired or became business partners with the sons of powerful A.N.C. politicians, like Mr. Zuma’s son Duduzane, and Tshepiso Magashule, the son of Ace Magashule, the party’s current secretary general.
It fell to the youngest of the Gupta brothers — the friendly and easygoing Rajesh, nicknamed Tony — to keep the sons happy. They went to nightclubs together and hung out in the family’s compound in Johannesburg.
The politicians’ sons flew first class to Dubai and India, staying in the best rooms at high-end hotels, all at the Guptas’ expense, according to emails from a Gupta-owned company leaked to South African news organizations and examined by The Times. One December, they joined the Gupta family on an extended vacation to Delhi, Dubai, New York and Venice, the emails show.
Tony also took the lead in pursuing business in Free State Province, where corruption had flourished under Ace Magashule, its leader at the time, A.N.C. officials said.
In an interview, Mxolisi Dukwana, then Mr. Magashule’s provincial minister of economic development, recalled how he and his boss went to visit Tony in Johannesburg. The president’s son, Duduzane, was also there, he said.
Mxolisi Dukwana, formerly the economic development minister in Free State Province, detailed illicit dealings between officials and the Guptas during an interview in the city of Welkom, South Africa.
Tony asked Mr. Dukwana to endorse a large-scale development project in the province, promising him a monthly cut, Mr. Dukwana said.
Tony added that he and the other two men in the room had a similar arrangement in a mining project, Mr. Dukwana said. He recounted Tony’s saying that he “personally gave” monthly payments of about $71,000 each to Mr. Magashule and to the president’s son.
“Then he asked them, ‘Have I ever failed you?’ And they both said no,” Mr. Dukwana said.
The three of them — Tony Gupta, Duduzane Zuma and Mr. Magashule — declined interview requests.
Mr. Dukwana said he turned down the offer and thought he would never see Tony again.
But a few years later, after Mr. Dukwana had left government, he said Tony invited him to Johannesburg. He sensed that Tony was hedging his bets — leaving open the possibility of a future relationship.
Tony ended the meeting by handing him about $1,100, for “petrol.”
“So I took it,” Mr. Dukwana said, “and that was it.”
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