While the Hawks do not have access to the thousands of emails that make up the GuptaLeaks, they are investigating some allegations linked to specific media reports, eNCA reported on Tuesday.
Acting Hawks head Yolisa Matakata told eNCA that the media reports give the Hawks no choice but to investigate.
"With us getting that kind of information, we have to work with it. And therefore it's through this work that we are doing, where you need to go to the various alleged departments involved or SOEs or whoever else is involved to start verifying by getting original information... We've never seen the actual emails that reference is made of in the emails but we have information that speaks to some of these emails," she reportedly said.
Matakata reportedly said that citizens need to be patient with the perceived slow pace of the investigations, adding that the Hawks were not captured.
"It's not easy to operate within this perception that we are captured...Hence we are really making an effort to show that, at the end, people might be taken to court. If we go to court just by mere allegations that come to us, again we'll be embarrassed, because the cases will be thrown out of court," she said.
In September, National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams told Parliament that the GuptaLeaks now formed part of the Hawks' investigation into state capture.
According to Eyewitness News (EWN), Abrahams said the investigation now had eight legs, including investigations into Transnet's payments to Trillian, a Free State dairy farm that received R180miliion in state funds allegedly to fund the Gupta wedding, and Eskom's handling of the Gupta's Tegeta Coal mine.
Abrahams reportedly said that the identities of the prosecutors involved were being withheld to prevent leaks.
In July, the Hawks said that a team of NPA prosecutors were assisting in their investigation into state capture, News24 reported.
Hawks spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku said this was not unusual.
"We appoint prosecutors to give guidance, but they don't do the investigations," he said.