The "Amigos" case took fourteen years from arrest to a jailed official. Intaka Holdings, owned by Uruguayan-born Gaston Savoi, sold water-purification plants ("Wataka") and mobile oxygen units to the KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Cape health departments between 2004 and 2007 — R44 million for the plants alone, R144 million across the deals — at prices the state later found inflated by tens of millions, paid from poverty-alleviation funds. Arrests in 2010 reached into the KZN cabinet: Health MEC Peggy Nkonyeni and Economic Development MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu were charged, then had charges withdrawn.
Dumisani Shabalala, head of the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Treasury, had chaired the procurement committee. He travelled to Brazil at Intaka's expense, recommended that poverty-alleviation funds buy the units, voted to award the contract and received R1.5 million. The Pietermaritzburg High Court convicted him of corruption and fraud and on 9 September 2022 sentenced him to 15 years; leave to appeal was refused. On 6 September 2024 Savoi, then 71, pleaded guilty in a plea agreement — R50.1 million in inflated tenders, a R5 million fine, R60 million forfeited — and turned state witness, admitting in his plea to payments to Nkonyeni. She was not convicted and is presumed innocent.