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Photo by SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

But EDC first has to find the plane; the Guptas made the plane’s location data private after EDC sought the jet’s exact whereabouts in a court filing. The disappearance of the plane is noted on FlightAware, a website that allows the public to track the location of planes around the world. “This aircraft (ZS-OAK) is not available for public tracking per request from the owner/operator,” the site says. The plane has been spotted in recent weeks at airports in India, Russia and Dubai.

Ehsan Monfared, a Toronto aviation lawyer, says the case is unusual. Most people or entities who buy business jets of that size and value don’t have credit issues, and banks like EDC make sure they’re well protected. EDC, for its part, insists it performed due diligence on the Guptas.

Phil Taylor, a spokesperson for EDC, said the bank’s motion seeking to ground the aircraft is due to be heard in Johannesburg on March 6, but he declined to comment further. A separate court case is also underway in Britain. An effort to contact the Guptas through their London law firm was not successful.

Photo by Seong Joon Cho/Bloomberg

It’s certainly an embarrassing incident for the bank. But Karyn Keenan, the director of Above Ground, a human-rights and development nonprofit, finds it ironic that EDC is now worried about risking its reputation when it should have known of the corruption allegations against the Guptas that were circulating in South Africa at the time of the loan deal.

“This loan should never have been made,” she said. “Everybody in South Africa knew who the Guptas were. They had been investigated by South African authorities.”

The good news for EDC is that it’s likely to get the plane back eventually. Under an international agreement called the Cape Town Treaty, Monfared said, lenders have the right to seize a plane in any country that’s part of the pact. “I don’t think the Canadian taxpayer is going to get bilked, unless the aircraft has been otherwise disposed of,” he said.