As the country raged about government corruption following the leaked Guptas emails, President Zuma and his cronies did their best to ignore the public’s fury. However, the architects of state capture have also crafted their own downfall.

In what will be a very rare case of welcome US intervention on foreign soil, the FBI have now opened their investigation into the ‘fraudulent activities’ of two Gupta-owned companies: KGMP and McKinsey.

Why have the FBI decided to step in?

Ashish and Amol Gupta, both US citizenship, are the nephews of Atul and Ajay Gupta. According to the Financial Times, the younger Guptas received payments from their uncles’ company based in Dubai. The FBI believe this has been with money laundered out of South Africa.

Their citizenship is enough to take state capture global however, and into the hands of our transatlantic friends. According to The Citizen, US authorities have already stated that they believe the Guptas are in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Read: The FBI have begun probing US links to the Guptas

State Capture begins to unravel

The FBI are reportedly using the leaked Gupta emails, which first surfaced in June, as evidence against the companies. The explosive documents revealed the harrowing extent of how deep state capture runs.

KPMG find themselves in a cauldron of hot water, following their flimsy auditing of Eskom. The energy giant are the household name in fronting state capture, and illegal Gupta payments. The auditors failed to notice – through either incompetence or complicity – that the state-owned business was fiddling its figures so suit the Gupta’s chequebooks.

McKinsey, an American consultancy firm, struck a deal with the Indian billionaires’ Trillian company. They immediately oversaw Eskom award a R266m tender to the Gupta business. This figure is extremely out of whack from what they should have been paid.