Chippy and his friends proved acceptable. Otherwise, he would make things difficult. The international end of the company also invested in the arms deal by buying shares of African Defence Systems, a bidder for one of the lucrative contracts in the arms deal. This bid excluded Nkobi Holdings, which was a shareholder of Thomson-CSF in South Africa—to Shaik's great consternation. In June 1996, Shaik held a meeting to tell his directors that they must gear up to bid for the electronic defence system needed to guide and protect South Africa's newly acquired corvettes. Shaik said that he would use his political connections to facilitate the contracts and tenders, because at that point both Shaik and Zuma were confident that Zuma would be made Deputy President in the post-Mandela government. Zuma was given more loans to facilitate the deal for Shaik and to help Nkobi receive more government contracts. The first newspaper article hinting at the relationship between Zuma and Shaik appeared at this time; however, it was insignificant. Published in the Cape Times, it was squeezed in between a report about a gangster gunned down in Cape Town and a car accident that claimed the lives of three people. Later, this article was considered the first mention of the case, although in January 1997 it was a brief news story: 'The police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the theft of classified military documents during an armed robbery at the home of Shamin 'Chippy' Shaik, which were in his car. The suspects were reported to have fled with Shaik's wallet, watch, and briefcase, which contained the documents. Shaik was not injured. Nobody was arrested.' Meanwhile, Shaik and Zuma wanted to establish a new venture, Nkobi Bank, to act as financial advisor to a bidding consortium on any large-scale public- or private-sector project. The bank would also compete for government and various ministry budgets as a deposit taker. Zuma was appointed as Deputy President in June 1999, and he began consolidating his assets, influence, and bank accounts. He started by developing his traditional residential village estate at Nkandla in Zululand in the rural northern part of KwaZulu-Natal. A contractor estimated the construction on the estate at R2.4 million (US$370,000), excluding VAT. Zuma negotiated with the contractor, and the final price was reduced to R1.3 million (US$200,000). Zuma was promised that construction would take six months, but it took nine. The money for