NSW transport bureaucrat admits being given envelopes of cash at Oporto to artificially inflate invoices | New South Wales

A former transport bureaucrat has admitted being paid in envelopes of cash after claiming he asked a contractor at a fast food restaurant in Oporto to artificially inflate invoices so he could split the difference.

Ibrahim Helmy, 38, appeared before the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) on Thursday for the second day of evidence alleging he was at the center of a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme.

He told his hearing on Tuesday that he hid in a cupboard when police came to arrest him last month after failing to appear for an examination as part of the investigation in May.

Under questioning by counsel assisting Rob Ranken SC on Thursday, Helmy admitted elements of the alleged scheme laid out at previous hearings.

The commission was shown correspondence between Helmy and a contractor, Complete Linemarking, in 2012 regarding work on various roads in Sydney, including the M4 motorway.

Helmy admitted that he asked the company to send the invoices to his private email account so he could replace them with inflated figures. It is alleged that these were then handed over to the former Highways and Maritime Services (RMS) institution, where he was working as a project engineer at the time.

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Seen at trial was a spreadsheet that Helmy admitted to creating, with columns showing rough amounts of original invoices and inflated invoices.

Other columns showed the difference between them and the proposed split of the difference between the two parties.

Helmy said he received envelopes of cash amounts from Complete Linemarking, but initially there were “problems withdrawing the cash.”

He later admitted scanning invoices at the RMS office and altering them to create false invoices to the contractor for traffic control services, creating a paper record that allowed them to withdraw funds to pay him under the alleged scheme.

The commission heard the relationship continued in subsequent years, with Helmy frequently receiving cash from the Oporto restaurant in western Sydney’s Wetherill Park, including from Peter Jankulovski, part owner of Complete Linemarking.

Jankulovski He explained the investigation in July He said the men often arranged to meet in the back of the restaurant or at the company building, where the money would allegedly be distributed.

After an agreement to meet in February 2015, Helmy wrote a message to Jankulovski: “Okay, good, behind Oportos.”

“I’m here now,” Helmy later wrote.

The hearing was shown an image that Helmy texted an alleged co-worker in July 2015, showing several cash envelopes placed on a tiger-patterned bedspread, which Helmy recognized as being from his then-home.

“I have about 84k with me right now haha,” Helmy wrote.

Asked if the numbers written on the envelopes matched amounts allegedly paid between December 2014 and July 2015 in a spreadsheet Jankulovski shared with him, Helmy said, “Yes, probably.”

Helmy, who joined the transportation department in 2010, was terminated in December for improper use of the department’s messaging platform.

That month, he was picked up from Sydney airport with a US passport while he was waiting for a flight to China, as he was in the middle of a mandatory exam at the time.

He was brought before Icac the next day, but when he failed to appear in May, he was released on the condition that he reappear.

He was arrested on September 26 and has remained in custody since then, although no criminal charges have been filed against him.

The investigation, which investigated allegations of kickbacks for contracts worth more than $343 million, also heard allegations that he personally received more than $11.5 million.

Helmy is expected to continue testifying through the rest of the week.

– via Australian Associated Press