As Micky Ahuja’s world crashed down around him last year, the private security kingpin deployed tried and tested tactics to minimise the damage.
The first: deny, deny, deny. The second: delay. For months, Ahuja has refused to answer detailed questions about the collapse of his once-booming MA Services Group, claims of tax fraud and worker exploitation, revelations about connections to a bikie network, and allegations by several women of predatory behaviour, including rape.
His approach didn’t work. On Tuesday, Ahuja opted for a radical change of strategy and, with the assistance of celebrity publicist Max Markson, held a bizarre “no-holds-barred” press conference in a Sydney warehouse. Suddenly, Ahuja was a man with an answer for everything.
Not in person, though. Ahuja fled to Dubai last year as his MA empire crumbled, and has no plans to return to face the music. Pressed via video link, he said his Middle East move was simply a matter of being a good family man. “We always travel as a family in December and January,” he explained. “When I moved here I did not know the business would collapse. As you can understand, my priority at the moment is to earn a good income to provide for my son and my wife, and that’s what I’m trying to do.”
He initially denied he had started any businesses in the United Arab Emirates, but records revealed a fledgling firm, FM Services L.L.C-FZ, under his name. “Just registering a business does not mean you are starting a business,” Ahuja insisted after being presented with the registration documentation.
Agitated and at times exasperated, he spent an hour-and-a-half claiming an avalanche of allegations – from regulators, former staff, women who worked for him or knew him, and customers – were “fake”, motivated by malice, lacked context or misunderstood how corporate Australia works. His argument boiled down to a belief he is simultaneously the most unlucky and most unfairly targeted man in the nation.
Ahuja said his career was defined by “countless hours of work, effort, tears and sweat”. But an eight-month joint investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes shows it has also been filled with sustained wrongdoing.
MA Services was once a fast-growing Australian security company whose clients included major retailers Coles – its biggest customer – as well as Kmart, Bunnings and Amazon, AFL clubs, the Melbourne spring racing carnival, the Australian Grand Prix and federal government agencies.
It collapsed on Christmas Eve last year, leaving 1700 people out of work and a string of creditors with massive unpaid bills.
Operation Hermes – a multi-agency law enforcement and regulatory probe – is examining tax evasion involving MA Services and a series of related companies.
The MA syndicate under investigation is suspected of pocketing unpaid tax and worker entitlements of more than $100 million. Ahuja said on Tuesday that the ATO had sent him a bill for nearly $14 million in unpaid taxes, which he is formally disputing.
Much of his scorn was reserved for Nick McKenzie, the decorated Australian journalist who has picked apart Ahuja’s lies and misdeeds through the investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes.
“In my opinion, he should quit journalism and become a scriptwriter for drama shows and movies,” Ahuja said of the reporter.
He repeatedly challenged McKenzie to agree to a one-on-one live interview on the caveat it is not edited, and is broadcast on one of Nine’s rival networks. (Nine is the owner of this masthead). McKenzie need not have bothered dismissing the demand as “silly” – the very concept would be laughed out of the room by television executives.
For McKenzie, Tuesday’s surreal press conference was a chance to put dozens of questions that Ahuja had been dodging. Under forensic examination, his answers fell apart.
Why had 20 MA Services subcontractors collapsed owing the ATO a total debt of $65 million? “I can’t answer that,” Ahuja replied. Pressed, he could recall one collapsed company, and then, eventually, two.
“Have you ever run a business?” Ahuja eventually shot back. “You’re not understanding how a business operates. You’ve got to understand how it is to run and grow a business from scratch.”
He asked McKenzie to send him proof the 20 firms had collapsed. “Ah, excuse me,” McKenzie said. “These are corporate records. They are available online!”
In praise which will cause heartburn at Coles’ head office, Ahuja also leapt to the defence of the supermarket’s ethics team, declaring it “one of the best we ever worked with”.
When read Coles’ recent statement accusing Ahuja’s company of operating a “sophisticated and misleading scheme designed to successfully conceal breaches of workplace laws from Coles”, he stumbled. “They have all the data, they have all the payslips,” he said.
Prior to his company’s collapse, Ahuja lived a lavish lifestyle that included driving a Rolls-Royce 4WD, two Mercedes G-Wagons and a Lamborghini Urus.
Ahuja said he was selling some of his many properties, and had offloaded three of his six luxury watches “to pay for food”. Asked whether he would use the proceeds of any sales to pay back those in Australia out of pocket, he denied anyone was owed money or had been underpaid.
On the most serious of claims facing Ahuja – two allegations of rape and others of serious sexual misconduct – the former young entrepreneur of the year went on the attack, making a series of assertions about the women, their motives and backgrounds. He offered little to no evidence to back up his claims.
Sara*, a former police officer-turned employee under the MA Services umbrella, told the joint investigation over the weekend that Ahuja took her to her hotel suite at Melbourne’s Crown casino in April 2019.
She said she passed out and woke up in “a panic” and alone in the room. “I was naked and there was vomit to the side of the bed and then the bottom half of the bed and a little part of myself was covered in blood,” she said. The blood was from tearing Sara had suffered during the alleged rape.
The investigation did not use Sara’s real name, to protect her privacy. But Ahuja named her during Tuesday’s press conference – a statement which could constitute a criminal offence if made in some Australian states. He also claimed they had “chemistry” and were in a relationship after the Crown casino encounter of 2019.
“I did not rape her, and if she thinks I did I encourage her to go to Victoria Police today,” he said.
Ahuja repeatedly denied he was Sara’s boss, though he eventually conceded she worked at a subcontracting firm MA Services used to hire security guards.
Some of his criticisms of Sara veered into downright pettiness, including claiming that she once drove four hours to collect a pet bird for his birthday “which died on the way back, unfortunately”.
A series of Snapchat messages have also revealed Ahuja offered one woman, Rachel*, multiple payments of $1000 for sex. The offer was made when she was financially vulnerable having separated from one of MA Services’ senior managers.
One message stated: “Want to make love, kiss those lips. Let’s make a deal? $1000 for every time we catch up.” Another said: “Happy to pay. Asked a zillion times already.”
Ahuja said on Tuesday that the pair had a “flirtatious friendship” and conceded he had demonstrated a “serious lack of judgment”. While confirming much of Rachel’s story, he maintained Snapchat screenshots in which he offers to pay for each “catch up” were fabricated. He said he did not have records of the pair’s historical conversations to prove his claim.
This was a bridge too far for McKenzie, who said to Ahuja: “So everyone who alleges sexual misconduct against you has either made up messages or has a dodgy past?”
McKenzie sought to interrogate Ahuja further, but the businessman stonewalled. McKenzie left in frustration, leaving time for journalists gathered in the warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria to ask a final few questions, including whether it was exhausting being a compulsive liar.
“No, because I am not a liar,” he replied with a straight face. The broadcast ended, and Ahuja went off in search of breakfast in the City of Gold.
*Names have been changed.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
