The Cape Town office of Iqbal Surve, chairperson of Independent Media and head of investment firm Sekunjalo, was raided by the financial regulator the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) on Wednesday morning.

News of the raid was first published on the Business Report website, the financial news arm of Independent Media. Included in the article is a 2-minute video where Surve tells officials that in his view Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan "is behind this as well as other people".

Business Report reported that the raid at the Waterfront offices was done without prior notice and that the officials tried to confiscate laptops and computer hard drives. On the video Surve says he sees the raid as an abuse of the regulatory authorities.

"You are not going to take my laptop as there is privileged information on there," Surve says in the video. He alleges the raid is "to get information we have on Pravin Gordhan and the president (Cyril Ramaphosa) and which my reporters are about to publish this weekend".

The FSCA is investigating transactions in AYO Technology - which is linked to Surve - for market manipulation.

Government's investment arm, the Public Investment Corporation, invested R4.3 billion in AYO before its listing on the JSE in December 2017, while AYO's assets were reportedly worth far less than that.

In April, the judicial commission of inquiry into the PIC heard that millions of rands from the PIC investment into AYO went to two companies linked to Surve the day after it was listed on the JSE.

The IT firm's former chief investment officer, Siphiwe Nodwele, told the commission that he valued the AYO at between R700 million and R1 billion - far below the R14.8bn determined by the state-run asset manager in late 2017.