Government worker, wife and building firm boss face corruption and fraud charges over $71m crime

Publisher
9 News
Date published
November 2025

Relevant impacts: Government Outcomes Impact, Industry Impact, Financial Impact, Business Impact

A Department of Defence employee, his wife, and a Northern Territory construction firm director have been charged with conspiracy to channel $71 million in construction contracts to their own company. The charges follow investigations by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

The group allegedly attempted to influence how construction tenders were awarded, with the Defence employee exploiting his position to influence the allocation of building contracts to the companies of his co-conspirators. Allegations of corrupt conduct and potential crime were reported to both the AFP and the NACC, who took part in an 8-month joint investigation with Defence officials. Further investigations remain ongoing.

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Related fraudster personas

The Organised

The Organised are groups which use a combination of methods in planned, coordinated and sophisticated ways to dishonestly gain benefits.
ICON 033: Organised persona

The Exploiter

The Exploiter uses something for a wrongful purpose to dishonestly gain personal benefits.
ICON 031: Exploiter persona

The Coercer

The Coercer influences, manipulates or bribes another person to act in a desired way to dishonestly gain personal benefits.
ICON 030: Coercer persona

Related countermeasures

Governance, accountability and oversight

Establish governance, accountability and oversight of processes by using delegations and requiring committees and project boards to oversee critical decisions and risk. Good governance, accountability and oversight increases transparency and reduces the opportunity for fraud.

Collaborate with strategic partners

Collaborate with strategic partners such as other government entities, committees, working groups and taskforces. This allows you to share capability, information and intelligence and to prevent and disrupt fraud.

Staff and contractor rotation

Rotate staff and contractors in and out of roles to avoid familiarity. Staff and contractors can become too familiar with processes, customers or vendors, which can lead to insider threats.

Random allocation

Randomly allocate requests or claims to staff for processing. This removes the option for staff to select which claims to process.

Segregation of duties

Separate duties by allocating tasks and associated privileges for a business process to multiple staff. This is very important in areas such as payroll, finance, procurement, contract management and human resources. Systems help to enforce the strong separation of duties. This is also known as segregation of duties.

Investigate fraud

 Investigate fraud in line with the Australian Government Investigation Standards (AGIS).

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