in some cases, and i m gonna make them magically profitable and at the same time i m gonna make them green. mr gupta s business the gfg alliance now employs 35,000 people around the world. including more than 4,000 at steel mills in the uk. he s become a key player in one of our most important industries. it s so remarkable what mr gupta has achieved here in ensuring a future for this steel mill. he grew his business by borrowing $5 billion dollars from greensill capital. once again, the cash came from investors who thought their money was secured against real invoices. but once again, that wasn t always true.
being on the hook for hundreds of millions of pounds. david cameron s spokesman said he had no knowledge of gfg s financial situation. he made representations to the government because he sincerely believed there would be a material benefit for uk businesses at a challenging time. and two westminster inquiries have confirmed that he broke no rules. sanjeev gupta s company gfg alliance, and its financing arrangements with greensill capital, are now being investigated by the serious fraud office.
gfg alliance told us it takes the sfo investigation seriously and won t be commenting further while it s ongoing. 0ur evidence suggests investors have been misled. huge sums were invested in invoices that didn t exist. if you re taking somebody s money, and you re putting it into an investment, into an asset, then you should be open and honest and transparent about what that is. and in this case they were saying it was one thing but, actually, it was something else. investors are facing billions in losses. but lex greensill isn t short of cash. he took at least $40 million out of his company
if you re lending money against the value of an invoice, if there are any issues with that invoice, you might not be able to get the money back. so, it s absolutely critical that you do the work to understand whether or not that invoice is real. in 2020, the wheels started to come off. sanjeev gupta s gfg alliance companies were in trouble. we ve discovered greensill capital knew ? because gfg was failing to make payments on its loans. instead of raising the alarm, greensill kept quiet, and used its own cash to cover repayments gfg couldn t afford. we ve seen an email that shows how worried a greensill finance officer
greensill allowed 11 of mr gupta s companies to borrow against invoices that didn t exist. another gfg company, liberty commodities, was supposed to provide actual invoices for sales that had already happened. but earlier this year, it was reported that six of the invoices might be forgeries. these invoices, they say, you know, sanjeev gupta s company sold this amount of metal to this company on this date, you know, black and white it s pretty clear. we contacted some of these companies and many of them said, we ve never traded with sanjeev gupta. you know, not even that this specific invoice is incorrect, sort of, we ve never done business with him at all. sanjeev gupta said the story was misleading and damaging. but panorama has obtained more invoices his company submitted to greensill.