Do South Africans need a visa if they want to travel to Dubai?

Six Dubai-based Gupta companies found to be ‘fraudulent’ shells [video]

The front companies exist solely to launder money for the Indian billionaires

Do South Africans need a visa if they want to travel to Dubai?

At least six Dubai based businesses belonging to the Gupta brothers are empty, hollow shells. A News24 investigation visited the UAE to stake out these locations, and found next to no activity at their registered addresses.

The five companies mentioned were JJ Trading, Global Corporation, Accurate Investments, Fidelity Enterprises and Griffin Line General Trading. Journalists, funded by the Taco Kuiper Fund for Investigative Journalism, set about visiting the premises to find out more about how the Guptas operate.

However, they were greeted by eerie scenes at each venue. JJ Trading, a ‘scrap metal’ business that apparently received R760m in kickbacks to facilitate a Chinese deal with Transnet, is meant to be on a secure industrial estate in Sharjah, 50km north of Dubai.

‘No known location’

However, guards on duty told the investigative team when they arrived that there is no ‘JJ Trading’ facility in that location. For a company playing about with nigh on R1bn, it’s incredibly strange they have no known location.

The journalists then turned their attention to Global Corporation, Accurate Investments, and Fidelity Enterprises. These three were implicated in the Vrede Farm scandal – a project which siphoned R30m of taxpayer money into Gupta accounts.

Dubai and Sharjah used as shell cities

Global Corporation and Accurate Investments supposedly share the same address in a building next to a lagoon also based in Sharjah. The address they used for these outfits – as revealed by the #GuptaLeaks – turned out to be residential accommodation. Receptionists confirmed no business operates from here.

Fidelity also turned out to be a hoax. Registered to the Al Quoz estate in Dubai South. Neighbouring business owners confirmed that no such organisation existed near here.

The ghosts of Gupta enterprises

The one office the team managed to track down summed it all up, though. Griffin Line General Trading is situated at the heart of the Dubai business district. However, the door was locked and no-one was manning the office. In the middle of trading hours.

It may have been a week of frustration for the journalists, but they can be happy knowing that this further implicates the Guptas as liars and charlatans. They may have been on a wild goose chase, but this was no lost cause.