Estina Dairy Farm case prompts tight security

Security has been tightened at the Bloemfontein Regional Court where eight accused are appearing in connection with the more than R220 million Estina dairy farm project alleged corruption.

Advertisement

The accused include Varun Gupta‚ Ashu Chawla‚ Kamal Vasram‚ Ronica Ragavan‚ Nazeem Howa, who all worked for the Gupta business empire.

Also on the list are Free State agriculture department officials Peter Thabethe‚ Takisi Janki Masiteng and department’s former chief financial officer Sylvia Dlamini.

They face a string of charges ranging from fraud and theft to corruption and money laundering. They allegedly swindled the money earmarked for emerging black farmers in Vrede.