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Text messages between the accused mastermind of a multimillion-dollar kickback scandal and his alleged right-hand man at Transport for NSW reveal the pair couldn’t “say no to money”, and were eager to pocket more, describing it as “floodgates open[ing]”.
In his ninth day in the Independent Commission Against Corruption witness box, now-sacked Transport for NSW official Ibrahim Helmy, 38, was grilled about his allegedly improper arrangements with asphalt paving company Avijohn Contracting, which resulted in it being awarded contracts worth $17 million between 2019 and 2025.
Sacked Transport for NSW official Ibrahim Helmy appears in the witness box at the ICAC inquiry.Credit: ICAC
Helmy admitted to the inquiry that he and former TfNSW officer Peter Le pocketed at least $20,000 in cash kickbacks each from Avijohn’s director Michael Kennedy, in exchange for the family business receiving more work from Transport for NSW.
On one occasion, the pair met Kennedy on May 6, 2020, in the car park of a Rashays restaurant in Carramar in Sydney’s west, where they each received $5000 in cash.
In a text exchange aired at the inquiry with Le four days before the meeting with Kennedy, the pair discussed the thousands of dollars they were owed, in which Helmy said: “How much is he giving us haha … Hahaha we can’t say no to money lmao.”
“Avi has $2.5 million worth of work to do before FY. So in two months we should get something decent from him again,” Le said.
“This is gonna be a good year,” replied Helmy, to which Le responded with: “Then the floodgates open.”
Bundles of cash collected as part of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s investigation into sacked Transport for NSW official Ibrahim Helmy.Credit: ICAC
The ICAC is investigating allegations that Helmy was the mastermind behind corrupt relationships with nine companies that were paid at least $343 million in Transport for NSW contracts in exchange for kickbacks.
He is accused of receiving $11.5 million in kickbacks – including cash, gold bullion and cryptocurrency – from the contractors in return for their being awarded work on the state’s roads.
Before he was suspended in September last year and later sacked, Helmy was responsible for Transport for NSW’s traffic control panel, which involved managing relationships between contractors and engineers, and dealing with payment claims.
Under questioning from ICAC counsel assisting Rob Ranken, SC, about how their improper dealings with Avijohn worked, Helmy admitted he would manipulate the tender process with help from Le, who would “fudge the numbers” and increase prices of competitor companies so Avijohn would be more likely to be awarded work.
In return, Helmy initially wanted to be paid a 1 per cent cut of Avijohn’s contracts, with values up to $10 million. But in text messages shown to the inquiry, he later suggested to Le they should bump their portion up to 1.5 per cent.
Le said: “I’ll leave it up to you. Don’t wanna get too greedy and he backs out.”
Helmy responded: “Mate it’s all up for negotiationzzzz.”
The inquiry heard the pair also used the death of a colleague to misrepresent the fact that they had wanted a contractor they received cash benefits from to be awarded government work.
In August, Le admitted to the inquiry that he had suggested to Helmy to make a fake email from their late workmate to sign off on work orders for Avijohn.
“I was considering signing them and saying that he signed it before dying haha,” Helmy said in a message on September 1, 2020, shown to the inquiry.
“Like they can’t check or anything lol … We’ll make use of him dead or alive.”
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During the hearing on Thursday, Helmy maintained it was “all initiated from a silly joke, that he died without signing”.
ICAC chief commissioner John Hatzistergos repeatedly questioned Helmy if he thought these jokes, six days after their colleague’s death, were appropriate, and asked: “Are you able to enlighten me where the humour is in all of this?”
After four months on the run, the US-born Helmy was discovered by detectives hiding in a cupboard in a unit block in Lakemba in south-western Sydney on September 26. He was taken into custody, where he remains, apart from his appearances at the ICAC inquiry.
Before the public inquiry, ICAC investigators seized gold bullion bars and nuggets and $12,317 in cash from his Merrylands home, as well as a Maserati, $413,000 worth of cryptocurrency held by him, and the equivalent of $8 million in cryptocurrency in a Binance account in the name of his sister.
The public inquiry into the kickbacks is part of an ICAC investigation known as Operation Wyvern, and is the fourth into corruption in procurement processes at Transport for NSW since 2019.
Helmy is due to reappear on Friday.
With Matt O’Sullivan
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