Amit Gupta of Agrifields DMCC Declared Fugitive: Sydney Morning Herald Report

Disclaimer: This article is an unedited, unmodified extract from The Sydney, Morning Herald article by award winning Australian journalist Nick McKenzie. (who was won the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year twice and Kennedy Award for journalist of the year), released on March 9, 2024.

Sydney (Australia): In a shocking revelation, The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that Australian businessman Amit Gupta, founder of Agrifields DMCC, is a fugitive accused of masterminding an alleged bribery plot to influence the political landscape of the small Pacific island nation of Nauru.

Award-Winning Journalist’s Exclusive Report

This report is an unedited extract from the original article written by Nick McKenzie, the award-winning Australian journalist who has twice received the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year award and the Kennedy Award for Journalist of the Year. The article was first published on March 9, 2024.

The 2013 Raid and Escape

According to the report, in the early hours of June 19, 2013, Amit Gupta boarded an international flight after his Gold Coast home was raided by federal police.
Investigators had been tapping Gupta’s phone for weeks, probing sensational allegations that he had backed a political coup in Nauru by bribing several politicians to topple the government. Gupta allegedly hoped that the new regime would hand him complete control of Nauru’s phosphate mining rights.

If those moments marked Gupta’s lowest point, they were fleeting. As his flight took off, his future seemed to open up again.

From Fugitive to Business Tycoon

In the decade since fleeing, Gupta has reportedly built a global business empire worth nearly $800 million.
He is currently based in Dubai, where, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian authorities’ efforts to extradite him collapsed in 2023 after being rejected by UAE authorities on legal grounds.

The rejection was based on a technicality — Gupta’s lawyers argued that since bribery of foreign politicians was not a crime under UAE law at the time of the alleged offence, he could not be extradited. The UAE government agreed and dismissed the Australian extradition request.

The Nauru Bribery Scandal

The Nauru bribery scandal first came to light in 2010, when The Australian reported that Australian police and intelligence agencies were investigating a plot involving Gupta and his relatives to use bribery to gain political control of Nauru — effectively turning it into a puppet state.
The island’s only industry, phosphate mining, was allegedly to be taken over by Gupta’s companies.

By October 2012, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) began wiretapping Gupta’s phone. Eight months later, his Gold Coast home was raided.
In 2015, both The Sydney Morning Herald and the ABC reported that Gupta could face imminent charges — but by then, he was already two years on the run.

Alleged Global Bribery Network

Leaked emails and transaction records obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald allegedly expose a systematic bribery network targeting Nauru’s top politicians, intended to secure preferential treatment and exclusive phosphate contracts.

The documents also suggest Gupta’s questionable corporate behaviour extended beyond Nauru.
His companies allegedly paid bribes to senior Algerian officials for mining concessions, used a poor Indian man as a “straw director”, and issued fake invoices for phosphate imports from Togo.

Tax Evasion and Fake Invoices

The investigation also revealed that Gupta’s companies created fictitious invoices and false expenses to move large sums of money out of Australia, helping him evade millions in taxes.

According to AFP’s Getax investigation, officers tracked Gupta’s global money movements for several years. In 2020, the AFP seized multiple properties and bank accounts in Australia, Singapore, and New York worth an estimated $200 million.

Agrifields DMCC: The Global Fertilizer Brand

After fleeing Australia, Gupta reportedly established Agrifields DMCC, a global fertilizer firm headquartered in Dubai, which remains operational and financially successful despite the ongoing allegations.

Source and References

Original report: The Sydney Morning Herald
Full article: The Man Who Tried to Buy a Country – Sydney Morning Herald

Tags: Amit Gupta, Amit Gupta Agrifields, Agrifields dmcc, Amit Gupta scam, Nauru Scam, Amit Gupta, Agrifields DMCC, Sydney Morning Herald, Nauru bribery scandal, Getax investigation, Australian Federal Police, Nick McKenzie, Dubai, extradition, corporate fraud, mining rights, phosphate industry.

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