Mandrax trafficker Vicky Goswami currently holds various titles in different countries. In Dubai, he is a former prison inmate. In the United States, he is a state witness. He is a wanted suspect in India. And in South Africa, he is probably a source of anxiety for many.
Goswami's name is the hinge that ties together a series of allegations linking South African state capture agents to some of the world's most notorious drug traffickers.
On the one hand, there are reports that members of the Gupta family at the heart of the state capture scandal in South Africa were laundering money on behalf of self-styled spies from Pakistan, who the US denounces as prolific global drug criminals. There is also.
On the other hand, there are accusations that a suspected South African money launderer with suspected ties to global drug-trafficking terrorists laundered cash for the Guptas. The Guptas have not been charged in the case.
Surrounding all these claims, and refuting the denials, are the names of several powerful politicians, including former head of state Jacob Zuma.
Asked last week about related issues, including whether Mr Zuma knew the alleged key money launderers, Jacob Zuma Foundation spokesperson Mzwanele Mani told Daily Maverick: “You are a deserter. I'm fishing there,” he said.
Gupta's attorney was not available to answer Daily Maverick's questions by the time of publication.
Mr Mandrax and Mr Mandela
Goswami, the glue that holds the various claims together, has a deep history with South Africa. He is from India and was active there in the early 1990s.
Asked about five years ago in a U.S. courtroom if he remembered being photographed with Nelson Mandela, the first president of the once democratic South Africa, he said he did.
He denied any involvement with the “South African government” as he wanted protection from prosecution. But several people involved in this country's law enforcement agencies believe that is not the case, based on interviews to date – that he sought and earned that protection.
Politics and Zambia
A web of political suspicion has spread from Goswami. One strand of that vast web connects to Zambia.
Before South Africa, Goswami was in Zambia (coincidentally where Zuma became the ANC's intelligence chief during apartheid) in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
According to a 2014 Sunday Times article (no longer available online), Goswami once said: I funded the ANC and contributed to the struggle. ”
During apartheid, the South African government manufactured drugs. Members of the then-banned ANC were also suspected of trafficking drugs to raise funds to fight the regime.
This journalist's book is Clash of the Cartels: Unmasking the global drug lord stalking South Africarefers to a 1987 affidavit by Vuyo Nzeku, a former drug smuggler who later became an aviation businessman.
Nzeku's 1987 affidavit states: “Many of the Mandrax dealers are people working for the ANC, and the money earned from the tablets is used to buy weapons…Many cars are stolen in South Africa and then taken to Zambia to be exchanged. for tablets. These cars are used by the ANC. ”
But last week, in response to extensive questions from Daily Maverick, ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsili strongly denied that any drug dealing ever took place, calling any such insinuations “egregious”. , said there will be no “lies” in South Africa in 2024. .
Anti-apartheid fighters were involved in smuggling weapons and important documents, but not illegal drugs that could “destroy the lives of South Africans,” she said.
Meanwhile, Nzeku's affidavit also mentioned an individual known as 'Ibu'. This was the alias of Ibrahim Shirudky Yusuf, a Zambian-born businessman active in South Africa who may have had ties to Goswami. Yusuf was reportedly on the radar of Zambian police for allegedly trafficking Mandrax in the 1980s.
Read more at Daily Maverick: Vuyo Sipho Nzeku's Zondo testimony is one of the strangest to have taken place before the commission
In October 2010, email and guardian reported that “Mr. Yusuf's move to South Africa appears to have been eased by contact with ANC officials living in exile in Zambia.''
Yusuf had been dealing with former South African national intelligence director Billy Masethla, who is widely seen as an ally of Zuma. According to condolence messages on social media, Yusuf passed away in 2021 and Masetola in 2023.
Nzeku, the source of some of the Zambia-related claims, has resurfaced. In 2020, he testified before the State Capture Commission, which probed widespread corruption that occurred primarily when Zuma was head of state.
Mr Nzeku did not have a good reputation on the committee, often giving vague answers to questions such as corruption allegations related to South African Airways.
murder by mastermind
As for Goswami, he appeared in Dubai after stints in Zambia and South Africa, where he was jailed in 1997 after being sentenced to life imprisonment for the Mandrax trade.
But Goswami was released from prison in 2012 and headed to Kenya, where the law caught up with him again.
In 2017, he was extradited from there to the United States along with other suspects, including two Kenyan brothers, Baktash Akasha Abdallah and Ibrahim Akasha Abdallah (also known as Akasha). They were accused of running a global drug trafficking empire involving the United States and South Africa.
Read more at Daily Maverick: Can South Africa close the web of deadly drug trafficking linked to a global web of crime?
Baktash was sentenced to 25 years in prison in the United States in 2019, and Ibrahim was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2020.
Meanwhile, Goswami admitted that he, along with Akasha and others, were dominant in South Africa's drug trade and that they masterminded murders in the country to strengthen their position.
Goswami said a partner of a rival trafficker known as Pinky was shot 32 times somewhere in South Africa around 2014. “It's to make an impression on the South African drug market.” [that] We didn't come here to play. ”
Mr. Goswami testified about this and more in a U.S. court in 2019.
Read more at Daily Maverick: Goswami's SA Mandrax Secret
What makes this international human trafficking case notable, and casts South Africa in a rather dubious light, is that even though the case primarily focuses on South African drug trafficking, it has been filed in the United States. is.
And South Africa has not taken action against Goswami, even though he has openly talked about how he engaged in human trafficking through the country and tried to control the drug industry for years. .
Pakistani “spy”
Another defendant also fits into this matrix. The US claimed that Muhammad Asif Hafeez, known as Sultan, was collaborating with Goswami and Akasha. Originally from Pakistan, Hafeez was based in the UK.
In 2019, Vrai Weakblood reported that Goswami also alleged in sealed grand jury testimony in the United States that members of the Gupta family were involved in money laundering on Hafeez's behalf.
According to the report, Goswami claimed that Salim Essa, a colleague of the Gupta family, introduced him to the Gupta family and that Goswami then linked the Gupta family to Hafeez. Essa denied it.
(In the same year, 2019, the United States sanctioned Mr. Essa, as well as Mr. Ajay, Mr. Atul, and Rajesh Gupta, whom the US Treasury Department deemed “members of a significant South African corruption network.”)
Hafeez was reportedly extradited from the UK to the US last year.
Last month, Emmanuel Rusha, a European lawyer representing Hafeez, confirmed to Daily Maverick that Hafeez had indeed been detained in the United States.
Read more at Daily Maverick: Suspected Pakistani 'spy' stumbles in major SA-linked drugs case in bid to prevent UK extradition to US
While relaying Mr Hafeez's answers to questions from Daily Maverick, Mr Rushat denied that Mr Hafeez knew the Guptas and said if Mr Goswami had made such a claim, it was “wrong”. Stated.
us government witness
Back to Goswami. US court documents point out what happened to him.
A U.S. government filing before a 2019 hearing on the drug trafficking case states: “The government plans to present testimony from Vicky Goswami, who is currently a cooperating witness for the government.”
This means Mr Goswami has become a state witness, meaning the US has access to explosive secrets about South Africa's drug trade.
Daily Maverick twice asked the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) through a public relations email address in February what happened to Goswami and Hafeez, but did not receive a response.
Previously, in July 2021, Daily Maverick asked the DEA what happened to Goswami, and the DEA responded, “We cannot comment until the case is fully adjudicated.” This implied that the incident was continuing.
“Wanted Defendant”
Daily Maverick also established that Goswami is wanted in India despite turning out to be a US government witness in a drug trafficking case.
According to a 2019 press statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, a raid was conducted at a factory in Solapur, India, around 2014 in connection with that human trafficking case. 18 tons of ephedrine (used in the manufacture of crystal methamphetamine, or tik) were seized from there.
A Bombay High Court document related to the case dated 2022 lists Goswami as a “wanted defendant”.
A letter from the Gujarat High Court from September last year referred to Goswami as being in a “foreign country”.
“Global Terrorist”
Meanwhile, previous US court proceedings focused on Goswami in the drug case have mentioned Dawood Ibrahim, another global crime kingpin who is also of Indian origin and has ties to South Africa. And once again, political arguments surround this field.
Ibrahim, head of the sprawling international crime syndicate known as D Company, was investigated for mandrax trafficking throughout Africa, including this country, in the early 1990s.
D Company is involved in a wide range of crimes, from human trafficking to terrorist attacks and extortion, and is based in South Africa.
In 2003, Ibrahim was suspected of attending a cricket match in Gauteng with Jackie Selebi, a former South African National Police commissioner who was later convicted of corrupt links with drug dealers.
Also in 2003, the United States designated Ibrahim as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”
Last year, Daily Maverick reported that Al Jazeera's investigative unit's four-part series Gold Mafia placed Mr. Ibrahim in the country and related circles while Mr. Zuma was still head of state.
Read more at Daily Maverick: 'Gold Mafia' whistleblower and wanted terrorist Dawood Ibrahim arrested in the Gupta, Zuma neighborhood
South African Mohamed Khan, also known as “Mo Dole”, is a money launderer who knows Mr Zuma well and the former president is said to have visited his home.
It is also alleged that Mr Khan ran a company and laundered money for members of the Gupta family, and was involved in the Safin Bank scandal, in which the tax department is currently investigating how to collect dirty tobacco money. The company is seeking damages of R4.8 billion in connection with the above.
Mr Khan's younger brother Mr Dawood, a member of the gold mafia, began working with Mr Khan in 2011 and claimed there was a meeting at a hotel in Sandton around that time. He claimed that Ibrahim was also among those present.
Mr Khan said in the documentary that the accusations against him were false and that he had never met Mr Zuma, the Guptas or Mr Ibrahim.
The Guptas do not respond in the documentary, and when asked about this, Maniy told Daily Maverick, “You're fishing in the desert, aren't you?”
In the ongoing international drug case in the US, Goswami was asked about Ibrahim and whether he had agreed to assassinate him on behalf of Indian intelligence while testifying there in 2019. Goswami could not answer. Ibrahim remains listed as a wanted terrorist. DM
This article first appeared in the weekly newspaper Daily Maverick 168, available nationwide for R29.