New evidence from the Gupta emails shows how the family racially profiled prospective employees, preferring to hire white staff at events such as the infamous Gupta family wedding at Sun City in 2013. AmaBhungane and Scorpio reported in Daily Maverick that the Gupta family also preferred to have attractive women feature at their events.
This follows a report by News24 last week that Tony Gupta had allegedly called the security guards at his Saxonwold home "monkeys".
They would often hire staff for their events from modelling agencies, accepting or rejecting women based on their photographs, the report says.
An email from a modelling agency to the family in August 2014 reportedly reads: "Please see below profiles of girls that have confirmed availability. I need to get more white ladies."
In response to a conversation with Tony Gupta before the wedding in 2013, an agency called Heilbron Hospitality reportedly sent through a quote for staff saying: "Heilbron Hospitality confirms the provision of all Caucasian staff, with the majority of the waiters and a few of the butlers being female staff."
Gupta asked for a more specific gender and race breakdown.
In another email, it is apparent that the Guptas wanted part-time white staff to be brought in to work at Sun City's Gatsby Spa for the wedding. Their request was rejected.
At the time, City Press reported that most of the bodyguards and butlers at the wedding were white, Afrikaans speakers. Black staff were reportedly made to clean themselves before serving the guests.
The Gupta family said the claims were untrue at the time.
In another email, a Gupta employee reportedly complained about how black employees were treated by the Guptas.
The employee, complaining of how a fellow employee who had died was treated, wrote: "The Gupta family is very wealthy where you are able to spend more than R100 million for a wedding at Sun City, and yet you are unable to even give your poor employee who died without even earning a decent salary a good send-off.
"It is very disappointing and hurting to see how you spent a lot of money donating to political parties and hosting events for very high-profile figures and rulers of our country and yet you do not take care of your struggling and lowly paid employees, especially blacks."