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putting it on the plastic .....

going for the plastic ....

The Reserve Bank has been rocked by fresh corruption charges against one of its subsidiaries, with Nepal becoming the fourth country where federal police allege bribes were paid.

A series of Melbourne court orders prevent Fairfax from reporting important recent developments in the banknote bribery prosecution-the first of its kind in Australia- but the newspaper can reveal that the AFP has charged Note Printing Australia with conspiring to bribe Nepalese government officials between 2000 and 2002 in order to win currency supply contracts.

The decision to lay charges over NPA's Nepal deal is highly damaging to the RBA and its leadership.

Fairfax last month revealed that some of the central bank's most senior officials, including deputy governor Ric Battellino, sought in 2007 and 2008 to suppress or cover up explicit evidence NPA had been implicated in bribery in Malaysia and Nepal.

This information included admissions by NPA's Nepalese and Malaysian agents of using their commission fees to make illicit payments to officials to secure contracts, the discovery that NPA had lied in tender documents to a foreign central bank and had paid a middleman $500,000 months after he was sacked for corruption concerns.

The RBA leadership chose not to refer this information to federal police in 2007 and 2008, instead hiring law firm Freehills to provide advice on whether any Australian laws had been broken. Freehills said it could find no breach.

Police have now used the information that was not acted upon by senior RBA officials in 2007 and 2008 as the basis to charge NPA and several of its senior former executives with Australia's first ever foreign bribery offences in Nepal and Malaysia.

In a statement last month, the Reserve denied the cover-up allegations and claimed they were based on ''inaccurate and incomplete facts'' but said specific details could not be addressed as the matters were, or were potentially, the subject of court proceedings.

Police documents lodged in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court allege NPA conspired "to provide a benefit...with the intention of influencing a foreign public official".

Other documents show Nepal's interest in NPA's banknotes was sparked by a June 2001 letter from the then RBA governor, Ian Macfarlane, who urged his Nepalese counterpart Tilak Riwal to consider the product.

Mr Macfarlane's letter set in train a process where Nepal's central bank, finance ministry and cabinet endorsed the introduction of polymer banknotes, changed laws to allow Nepal's currency to be printed on material other than paper and held a short global tender process in early 2002.

There is no suggestion that Mr Macfarlane was involved in or aware of any of NPA's allegedly corrupt deals. However, his letter highlights how some of the RBA most senior figures lobbied strongly on the company's behalf.

NPA, which is 100 per cent owned by the RBA and whose board at the time of the alleged offences featured former deputy RBA governor Graeme Thompson and assistant governor Frank Campbell, has also been charged with bribing officials in Indonesia.

Sister firm, Securency and several of its former top executives have been charged with bribing officials in Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. Securency, which makes plastic banknotes, is 50 per cent owned and supervised by the RBA.

Federal police only began investigating the overseas activities of the RBA firms in May 2009 after Fairfax exposed their huge commission payments to a series of shady foreign middlemen with political connections.

The latest charges to be laid against NPA further challenge RBA governor Glenn Stevens' statement to parliament this year where he said no one at the central bank knew anything about corruption concerns at its subsidiaries until May 2009.

The Gillard Government has consistently refused to support moves for parliamentary scrutiny of Mr Stevens and Mr Battellino's handling of Australia's biggest corruption scandal.

Labor MPs on the parliament's economics committee last month voted against a push by Coalition MPs to re-call the pair to face questions over allegations the RBA had sought to cover-up the scandal during 2007 and 2008.

The Nepal bribery charges are also a blow to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which played a key role in lobbying Nepalese officials to award NPA contracts in 2002 and 2004.

NPA and Securency have been ordered to appear next month in the Victorian Supreme Court in relation to the charges.

Eight former NPA and Securency executives are also scheduled to appear before court next month. They will face committal hearings next year. If they are committed to stand trial and are found guilty, they face jail sentences of up to 10 years.

The Federal Government last week it would strengthen foreign bribery laws in the wake of the banknote scandal.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/rba-subsidiaries-scandal-deepens/2368950.aspx?storypage=0

shades of awb ....

The Reserve Bank bribery scandal has spread to the Australian government's trade agency, with documents revealing Austrade met a notorious Indian arms dealer hired by Securency and knew of payments to a Vietnamese spy chief to secure contracts.

Austrade documents obtained by the Herald raise serious questions about whether some of its top officials knew about alleged multimillion-dollar bribes being paid by RBA subsidiaries Securency and Note Printing Australia across Asia. They show:

Austrade's senior trade envoy in Vietnam, Elizabeth Masamune, was told by Securency in 2001 that a firm controlled by Anh Ngoc Luong, a colonel in Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security, would act as a ''post box'' between the RBA firm and Vietnam's central bank. Ms Masamune worked closely with Colonel Luong, who the Australian Federal Police alleged in July had received up to $20 million in suspected bribes from Securency.

Austrade's regional director for south-east Asia, David Twine, met Indian arms dealer Vipin Khanna in May 2007 to discuss work for Securency. They met after Mr Khanna's passport was seized by Indian police following the revelation that he benefited from corrupt oil deals with Saddam Hussein.

A secret May 2007 deal arranged by Mr Twine for Austrade to perform due diligence services on Securency's foreign agents and to "provide a watching brief on specific organisations important to Securency (such as agents, customer governments and other 'influencers')''. A confidential Austrade memo states that both special ''assignments'' would be recorded in a ''discrete agreement'' and not documented in the agency's official contract with Securency.

The Herald has learnt Mr Twine left Austrade in October after his position was abolished in a restructure.

In a statement last night, Austrade said it was unable to answer specific questions because of the ongoing police investigation and court cases.

Austrade ''has fully co-operated with the investigation ... there are no allegations of impropriety against Austrade and no Austrade employee has been charged in relation to the AFP bribery investigation,'' it said.

Austrade assisted Securency International and NPA in 49 countries between 1996 and 2009. Two former senior trade commissioners, Paul Martins and Gustavo Ascenzo, joined Securency as sales executives. Mr Martins later returned to Austrade.

The federal government has blocked moves for an independent inquiry into corrupt dealings by the RBA subsidiaries and Austrade's role in their affairs since the Herald exposed bribery concerns in May 2009.

Documents released under freedom-of-information legislation show Ms Masamune, now Austrade's general manager for east Asian markets, knew in 2001 that Securency had financial dealings with Colonel Luong, who had been hired to help persuade Vietnam's central bank to switch its entire banknote issue from paper to plastic supplied by the RBA firm.

Despite Australia introducing foreign bribery laws in 1999, no one in Austrade warned Securency that it might be acting illegally by making payments to Colonel Luong and his firm, CFTD.

Internal Austrade documents indicate senior trade officials knew of Colonel Luong's connections to Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security as early as 1998. In 2007 and 2008, Austrade formally warned the RBA and Securency that Colonel Luong was a senior officer in the intelligence and security agency.

The financial aspect of Securency's dealings in Vietnam is referred to in emails between Ms Masamune and former banknote executive Cliff Gerathy.

In January 2001 Ms Masamune advised Mr Gerathy that she would ''stay in touch with Anh [Colonel Luong] and follow-up on the letters he needs to write to you regarding other financial issues''.

Two months later, Mr Gerathy sent an email to Ms Masamune stating: ''In the case of Vietnam, we are doing more than we have for any other country, especially in terms of financial commitment, which we are regarding as an investment.''

Securency and NPA, along with nine former executives, including Mr Gerathy, have been charged with bribing officials in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Nepal in order to win banknote contracts.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/banknote-scandal-widens-20111130-1o76q.html