Schabir Shaik is a South African businessman from Berea, Durban, who rose to prominence due to his close association with former South African President Jacob Zuma during Zuma's time as Deputy President. On 2 June 2005, he was found guilty of corruption and fraud, which also led to Zuma's dismissal by then President Thabo Mbeki. Early life and career Shaik was born in Johannesburg in the former Transvaal and grew up in Greenwood Park in Durban in the former Natal province. His father was an Indian South African from Pietermaritzburg in Natal; his mother was half-white and died in a car accident when he was a child. He is one of six brothers – his elder brothers are Salim and Faisal, and his younger brothers are Yunus, Moe, and Chippy – and also has a sister. In the early 1980s, his brother Yunus recruited him into an underground cell of the anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC). In later years, his work for the ANC reportedly included transferring donor funds from London to South Africa. At the same time, Shaik worked as a lecturer in the electrical engineering department at Peninsula Techikon until he resigned in 1986 because the institution raised questions about the veracity of his claim to hold a Hawaiian degree certificate. He pursued a Master's diploma in engineering at the ML Sultan Technikon but left in 1990 after he was suspended for one year because, according to the institution, he cheated on an exam. Post-apartheid career Nkobi Holdings After the ANC was unbanned by the apartheid government in 1990, Shaik became an adviser to Thomas Nkobi, who at the time was ANC Treasurer-General. In early 1995, the year after apartheid ended, Shaik founded Nkobi Holdings and Nkobi Investments, named after Thomas Nkobi, who had recently died. Shaik had initially claimed that the Nkobi family trust held shares in Nkobi Holdings, justifying his use of Nkobi's name; the Nkobi family denied that they held such shares or that any such family trust existed. Shaik's companies were based in the new province of KwaZulu-Natal and ultimately encompassed broad interests in defence, information technology, and infrastructure. Several sources told the Mail & Guardian that during the mid-1990s Shaik attempted to use his ANC affiliation to further his business interests. Shaik later said that he and Nkobi had admired Malaysia's bumiputera economic policy and that the Malaysian policy had inspired him to