The building official undone by sniffer dogs and $707,000 in hidden cash

A licensing assessor working for Victoria’s building commission took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to wave through the registrations of dozens of builders.

In the County Court on Thursday, former Victorian Building Authority assessor Phillip Caccamo admitted to having carried out the years-long corruption scheme by helping builders obtain their building licence by accepting tens of thousands of dollars to pass tests.

Caccamo, 60, accepted the bribes between 2021 and 2024 in his role as an assessor with the authority – now rebadged the Building and Plumbing Commission.

He pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office, in a charge brought by Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC).

Caccamo and several accomplices, both within Victoria’s building commission and outside, initially charged corrupt builders around $10,000 for a building licence in 2021. These “donations”, as they were labelled, rose to as much as $75,000 for a commercial building licence by 2024.

The scale of the corruption was laid bare when IBAC investigators raided Caccamo’s Keilor Downs home in August 2024.

Despite Caccamo initially denying there was any cash on the premises, investigators – aided by an Australian Federal Police canine team – discovered a total of $707,950 hidden in the house.

The bulk of the money, $690,100, was found inside a filing cabinet in a storage cupboard, with the drawer secured with “large bolts”. Another $17,850 cash was found in his office desk.

“When Caccamo was informed that an AFP canine team had identified the filing cabinet,” barrister Susanna Locke for IBAC told the court, “he stated that he did not know what was inside. When shown the large quantity of cash inside the filing cabinet, Caccamo stated he’d been a builder for 35 years before he started working at the VBA [and] that all of the cash came from building work.”

Later, he admitted lying about its source and agreed it was from a corrupt scheme he was part of.

In early 2024, Caccamo was caught saying in an intercepted phone call to an associate: “It’s a lot of work to earn $100,000 or $150,000 a year. But if you scam $2 million at $500,000 a year and then go to prison for two years, then I couldn’t give a f—.”

Dozens of builders have also been charged as part of the IBAC investigation; many have already pleaded guilty.

The court heard the bribery scheme began modestly in 2021 when a co-accused – registered builder Ozcan Oztas – met Caccamo for coffee in Keilor. As they finished, the prosecution said that Oztas handed Caccamo an envelope containing $1500 in cash, describing it as a “thank you” for an applicant Caccamo had interviewed.

Caccamo told investigators he initially resisted but eventually took the money, knowing he should not have. A pattern quickly emerged where, the prosecution alleged, Oztas would contact Caccamo whenever an associate was being assessed.

To ensure the “donations” kept flowing, Caccamo manipulated the VBA’s internal processes with the help of an assessment coordinator, who The Age is choosing not to name. The coordinator allegedly subverted the building commission’s random allocation system to ensure specific “scheme applicants” were assigned directly to Caccamo for assessment.

Between July 2021 and August 2024, Caccamo made 45 separate cash deposits into his bank accounts, totalling $98,820. During the same period, the coordinator also made 33 cash deposits totalling nearly $40,000 into her accounts shortly after meetings with Caccamo.

The court also heard that the amount Caccamo’s accomplice Oztas would suggest charging those wanting a building licence would be varied “based on factors such as whether or not he had a personal connection to the applicant, the ethnic background of the applicant, or the stage in the application process at which he had been approached”.

The prosecution detailed how Caccamo had abandoned his duty to protect public safety.

He allegedly conducted secret “pre-interview coaching sessions” via encrypted apps like WhatsApp, providing applicants with the exact questions and answers he would later ask in their formal, recorded building interview test.

In some instances, Caccamo realised during a coaching session that some applicants were so incompetent they could not even “give the appearance of passing”, Locke told the court.

In those instances, “a recorded interview was avoided, Caccamo would then complete the knowledge and experience assessment, recording that the applicant had met requirements, recommending registration and the application would be returned to the VBA for approval,” Locke said.

Caccamo’s defence team argued his moral compass was clouded by mental health struggles sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, County Court judge Gregory Lyon questioned this impairment, noting that Caccamo “accepts himself that he’s not a victim, but an active participant” in the bribery scheme.

The judge on Thursday afternoon warned Caccamo, who is currently on bail, that he was likely to go into custody on Friday.

Building and Plumbing Commissioner and CEO Anna Cronin said in a statement on Thursday that the commission would “suspend any practitioner found guilty of dishonesty or bribery offences as a result of IBAC’s Operation Perseus”. The statement noted that the former employees charged by IBAC had seen their employment terminated.

In his defence, Caccamo’s barrister told the court that Caccamo was not the architect of the scheme, but was instead “targeted and groomed” by co-accused Oztas. The defence described the approach as having “hallmarks of a classic entrapment”.

His barrister also argued that Caccamo had provided a “full and frank” statement to IBAC that was now being used in the prosecution of 37 co-accused. The defence argued this undertaking was “massive” and carried significant personal risk.