Transport official denies asking contractor to buy him $130,000 yellow Mercedes

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An allegedly corrupt Transport for NSW official at the centre of a multimillion-dollar kickback scandal has denied pressuring a contractor to purchase a $130,000 yellow Mercedes-Benz car for him, despite text messages showing he sent photos of the car and a link to a dealership.

In his 13th day in the Independent Commission Against Corruption witness box, sacked transport official Ibrahim Helmy was grilled about whether he had ever asked Andrew Stewart, the director of family business Capital Lines & Signs, to purchase for him a yellow Mercedes-Benz CLA45-S class worth more than $130,000.

A photo of the yellow Mercedes-Benz tendered to the ICAC inquiry.

The inquiry was shown a text message and photo of the luxury car Helmy sent Stewart on February 17, 2023, where he said: “Hi mate. The car is called CLA45-S. Prefer yellow colour. Thank you very much.”

The accused kickback mastermind denied asking Stewart outright for the purchase to be made, and told the inquiry on Wednesday that “it was never my intention to get him to buy me a car”.

“I would not ask him to buy me a car … As you can see, there are only three or four messages about the car,” Helmy said.

“I’ve sent photos to other contractors as well, it doesn’t always mean I wanted a car. The only payment methods that I’ve ever communicated with him were either cash or crypto.”

Transport for NSW manager Ibrahim Helmy and Capital Lines & Signs director Andrew Stewart.

However, Stewart told the inquiry in August that two days before the text exchange, they had a separate conversation in which Helmy told him to buy a yellow Mercedes-Benz CLA45-S class car and put it in his sister’s name.

Under questioning on Wednesday by ICAC counsel assisting, Rob Ranken, SC, Helmy also maintained he did not send Stewart a link to a Victorian car dealership where the vehicle was available because he wanted Stewart to buy him the car.

The ICAC is investigating allegations Helmy was the mastermind behind corrupt relationships with nine companies that were paid at least $343 million in contracts by Transport for NSW. He is accused of pocketing $11.5 million in kickbacks – including bundles of cash and gold bullion – from the contractors in return for their being awarded the work on the state’s roads.

It is alleged that Helmy pocketed more than $600,000 in cash and cryptocurrency bribes from Capital Lines & Signs, which gained about $36 million worth of work from Transport for NSW between April 2020 and June 2025.

The inquiry has been told that as part of their arrangements, Helmy would inflate invoices for work Capital Lines received from Transport for NSW, and the difference would be split between them.

Sacked Transport for NSW official Ibrahim Helmy appears at the ICAC inquiry.

In one instance, Helmy’s colleague raised discrepancies in two versions of a tender submitted by Capital Lines & Signs where the total amount had been inflated by about $223,000, and wanted to discuss this in a meeting with Helmy and Stewart.

A recording of a phone call played to the inquiry revealed Helmy discussed with Stewart’s son, Joshua, how they would explain the inflated invoice without raising any suspicions. After minutes of back and forth between the pair, they concluded the best solution would be to claim a draft version with the wrong amount was accidentally submitted before later submitting the correct version.

Helmy denied the proposition put to him by Ranken that it was a “deception” and “ruse” the pair had come up with to conceal their kickback schemes.

After four months on the run from police, Helmy was discovered by detectives hiding in a cupboard in a unit in south-western Sydney on September 26. He remains in custody apart from his appearances at the ICAC inquiry.

On top of cryptocurrency, ICAC investigators also seized a Maserati, gold bars and nuggets, and $12,317 in cash at his Merrylands home.

The public inquiry into the kickbacks is part of an ICAC investigation known as Operation Wyvern. It is the fourth into corruption in procurement processes at Transport for NSW since 2019.

Helmy will return to the witness box on Thursday.

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