Australian federal police investigating an Australian citizen for allegedly bribing politicians on Nauru have told a Senate estimates hearing they did not tell the then home affairs minister his department was paying the man’s company multimillion-dollar accommodation contracts at the same time, because it was not “custom and practice”.
The AFP says it knew a company linked to Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani had multiple ongoing contracts with the home affairs department when it briefed the then home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, on its Nauru foreign bribery investigation on 12 July 2018.
But it did not tell Dutton Bhojani’s name, the name of his company, or that Dutton’s department had multimillion-dollar contracts on foot with his department. Just over a month later, in August 2018, the home affairs department signed a new contract with Bhojani, ultimately worth more than $9m.
Bhojani controlled a collection of companies, known as the Radiance group, across Australia, Nauru, India and the UAE, along with his brother. His brother is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Home affairs signed three contracts with one of those companies – Radiance International Inc – totalling more than $30m of taxpayers’ money, to provide hotel rooms on Nauru in support of Australia’s offshore immigration processing on the island.
The Guardian revealed in May that Radiance International Inc continued to be paid by home affairs even after Bhojani had been charged, convicted and sentenced for bribing two Nauruan politicians.
Bhojani had been under investigation since 2015. Home affairs continued to pay money to Radiance International Inc until June 2023.
In Senate estimates on Friday morning, the ACT chief police officer, Neil Gaughan, said he was present for a July 2018 meeting in the office of then home affairs minister Peter Dutton, to brief the minister “on a foreign interference investigation”.
“But we wouldn’t have gone into any details,” he told estimates.
Gaughan said that the briefing detailed that the AFP was involved in a foreign interference investigation on Nauru and its potential to disrupt relations with the Nauru government.
“Mr Dutton was not briefed in relation to Radiance International or Mr Bhojani,” Gaughan said. “He was briefed in relation to concerns the AFP had in relation to our overt activity impacting on the relationship with the Nauruan government.”
Gaughan said it would have been “inappropriate” to tell Dutton it was investigating Bhojani and his company.
“We don’t brief ministers on persons of interest such as Mr Bhojani …. as a matter of custom and practice, we don’t mention individuals to ministers.”
Gaughan said “overt action” by the AFP might jeopardise the ability of Australian officials to travel to Nauru, which was required for Australia’s offshore immigration detention regime on the island as well as events such as the Pacific Islands Forum.
The Labor senator Deborah O’Neill said in estimates “it shocks me that you wouldn’t have gone into any details”.
“I’m very concerned that there seems to be a very significant gap in information sharing with the minister.
“There’s an investigation already under way from 2015 … and you don’t ever mention this at any point to Mr Dutton.”
Bhojani was a co-signatory on Radiance International Inc’s third accommodation contract with home affairs – ultimately worth more than $9m – in August 2018. That was a month after the AFP briefed Dutton on its Nauru foreign interference investigation, without detailing that he was its subject.
Bhojani was arrested the next month, in September 2018.
The AFP’s evidence regarding the Bhojani investigation has been confused and contradictory over months.
It conceded in estimates on Friday an earlier answer that it had briefed Dutton on Bhojani “was not correct”.
It agreed to re-answering an entire nine-part question on notice because it contained incomplete and erroneous information about its Bhojani investigation, and which arms of government knew what and when.
In an earlier question in estimates, the AFP was asked: “prior to … 2018, was the AFP aware that the Department of Home Affairs was paying millions of dollars to Radiance International while the company and Mr Bhojani were being investigated by the AFP for foreign bribery?”
The AFP responded, in writing: “Yes.”
However, in estimates on Thursday, Gaughan, who was the AFP officer responsible for briefing Dutton on the foreign interference investigation into Radiance, was asked whether he was aware Radiance International Inc “was being paid money by Mr Dutton’s department”.
“I wasn’t aware of that,” Gaughan said.
In August 2020, Bhojani was convicted of paying more than $100,000 in bribes to two Nauru government officials, including an MP and government minister, between 2015 and 2017, in return for preferential treatment on phosphate mining contracts for one company in the Radiance group, Radiance International Pty Ltd.
He was sentenced to a two-and-a-half-year custodial sentence, to be served by way of an intensive corrections order, with an additional condition of 400 hours of community service.
