‘Let me hook you up’: $100m probe no hurdle for disgraced security high-flyer

A sting operation has caught disgraced security company boss Micky Ahuja thumbing his nose at the Australian authorities pursuing him by attempting to rebuild his security empire from offshore, offering to supply dozens of guards to this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.

Ahuja left Australia in December after a series of revelations by this masthead preceded the sudden collapse of his company MA Services Group, amid allegations of tax fraud and widespread worker exploitation that have sparked a law enforcement operation into the mishandling of up to $100 million.

The sting came after the investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes on Saturday revealed supermarket giant Coles was accused of signing up for a $50 million-a-year contract with MA Services Group that it knew would result in widespread underpayment for thousands of security guards.

That prompted a fierce cross-party political reaction, with Nationals leader David Littleproud branding Coles “morally deficient” and Australia’s “worst corporate citizen”, while the Greens labelled the scandal another big supermarket rip-off.

But in late February, an undercover operative posing as a private security contractor captured Ahuja, speaking from his new home in Dubai, offering to organise the supply of 50 guards to the grand prix through two intermediaries.

Sources have also confirmed Ahuja has been liaising with private security industry insiders to help him relaunch his business – albeit via front companies and proxies – despite regulators actively pursuing him.

As well as revealing Ahuja’s involvement in suspected tax fraud and the rorting of thousands of mostly migrant security guards across Australia, the investigation by this masthead and 60 Minutes also details his firm’s deep ties to a bikie gang involved in a major offshore Albanese government-funded security contract and Ahuja’s serial sexual harassment of female employees.

This weekend, the ongoing eight-month investigation has laid out new details including accusations that some of Ahuja’s biggest corporate customers, led by Coles, turned a blind eye to MA Services unlawful conduct to profit from cheap security contracts.

It can also be revealed that Ahuja and his lieutenants who built the MA Services security empire – which until its recent collapse also counted Kmart, Bunnings, Amazon, AFL clubs and the federal government as major clients – are the target of a secret law enforcement operation.

Operation Hermes is a multi-agency inquiry led by the Australian Tax Office and several of its agency partners and which is probing the MA “syndicate”.

The syndicate includes not only Ahuja but several other targets and is alleged to have operated between 2015 and late last year, pocketing unpaid tax and worker entitlements of more than $100 million.

Despite this intense media and law enforcement scrutiny, Ahuja is rebuilding his security business from abroad.

In one of two calls with the undercover agent working for this masthead, Ahuja assures the operative he can arrange for Australian intermediaries “to get the guards” for the Grand Prix Corporation, a former MA customer that sacked the firm late last year.

“Let me hook you up with someone,” Ahuja states. “Anything you need, you just give me a call.”

A short time after that, one of Ahuja’s Australian agents contacts the undercover operative, explaining that “Micky has given me a number” and saying he was “happy to, you know, assist” with the immediate supply of 50 guards.

A day later, this masthead and 60 Minutes filmed the two intermediaries meeting the undercover operative at Southern Cross Station and offering to supply guards.

After they were approached by this masthead, one of the intermediaries denied he knew Ahuja or was supplying guards, claiming he was merely having a coffee.

Ahuja’s second fixer also denied any knowledge of the deal, despite being caught on tape.

Ahuja’s ability to flee Australia only to attempt to rebuild his empire exposes the impotence of private security regulation, as well as the challenges facing state and federal agencies.

According to Operation Hermes’ confidential early assessments, the MA syndicate is suspected of running a large-scale and highly organised criminal “phoenix” operation involving a network of front companies using dummy directors who collapse or disappear when tax debts or worker entitlements are demanded, only to resurface under new names.

The ATO has also confidentially estimated that the syndicate has, for years, been breaking Australia’s immigration, corporate and employment laws to get rich.

After he fled to Dubai, the newly appointed administrators of MA Services said that, along with a massive tax debt, Ahuja or his connected firms may have improperly pocketed loans worth $13 million, of which at least $4.8 million ended up in Ahuja’s personal accounts.

Operation Hermes emerged from the work of the Phoenix taskforce, a Tax Office-led multi-agency sitting group set up to inquire into criminal phoenix operations and whose members include the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC).

The ACIC is also among the federal government agencies that controversially hired MA Services as its private security providers.

Leading security and risk expert Graham Manson said MA’s federal government and law enforcement security contracts, despite red flags about the firm’s links to unlawful behaviour and a bikie gang, raised serious questions for the organisations involved.

He said the “risk is huge” that the suspected criminal elements within MA could exploit the agencies the firm was guarding, “undermining potentially very sensitive investigations” or public confidence.

Before its collapse, MA Services was at the tail end of a $3.83 million three-year deal to guard the ACIC offices. It has also been paid $1.1 million to guard the National Anti-Corruption Commission; more than $19 million to guard the departments of Parliamentary Services, Agriculture and Climate Change; and more than $3 million in services for security for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The ACIC has previously said that its contract with MA complied with government rules and relevant legislation.

Politicians on Saturday expressed disgust with Coles after a regulator lashed the supermarket company, and other customers, who accepted MA’s low-ball bids for contracts as having the morals of an “alley cat”.

“From my perspective, this underlines the moral deficiency of Coles,” said Nationals leader David Littleproud. “Whether they are dealing with their suppliers, their employees, or the consumers, these supermarkets have a real cultural deficiency in doing the right thing. They are our worst corporate citizens.”

He said the scandal showed the need for a supermarket commissioner to protect suppliers, consumers and employees, and expressed frustration that the media was having to oversee the industry instead of the appointed regulators.

Greens workplace relations spokesperson Barbara Pocock accused the supermarkets of gouging workers.

“Another day, another big supermarket rip-off. This time, ordinary workers and customers through misuse of dud suppliers in a cost-of-living crisis.

“Big supermarket chains carry core responsibility for their supply chains – multimillion-dollar contracts to known crooks who rip off vulnerable workers, manipulate visas, avoid tax and underpay and overwork employees are on them.

A federal government spokesman pointed to its wage theft reforms and said employees should be able to expect their legal entitlements.

In a statement on Friday, the administrator of MA Services, Jason Tracy of Alvarez and Marsal, said he was conducting investigations into “insolvent trading, potential misconduct by the director, Micky Ahuja”.

He was also examining other transactions potentially breaching the Corporations Act, including “uncommercial transactions and unreasonable director-related transactions”.

“Our investigations and recovery actions are continuing,” he said. “We are also maintaining engagement with various state and federal regulators to assist in their investigations and aid recovery efforts for the benefit of creditors.”

While the administrator has repaid about $1 million in wages to workers, authorities estimate that tens of millions of dollars may be owed in unpaid wages and superannuation.

Victoria’s labour hire regulator – which is also assisting Operation Hermes and sits on the Phoenix taskforce – has said that MA Services operated a “two-tier” system in which it supplied properly paid guards to most of its government clients to win ongoing contracts, but then supplied terribly exploited guards to large corporates such as Coles who were prepared to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing.

On Saturday, Labour Licensing Commissioner Steve Dargavel said Coles should be held to account for entering into its $50 million annual contract with the security firm because the supermarket giant knew it was rotten and the workers guarding its stores would be exploited.

“What we now know is that there were thousands of workers who had their wages stolen,” Dargavel said.

“Coles … had enough information to know that workers could not be paid properly under the contracts that they entered into” with MA Services, said Dargavel.

Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas praised the state’s Labour Hire Authority for its role in calling out Coles’ “unconscionable behaviour”.

Asked if she was confident MA Services had not profited from the state government’s money, Thomas side-stepped the question and said the government would “always stand on the side of working people and working Victorians”.

For more, watch 60 Minutes, 8.40pm on Sunday.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.