Luxury cars worth $1m to be sold off by embattled roadworks company Protection Barriers

Jason and Meshell Chellew have to sell two Bentleys, a Lexus, a Land Rover and a Harley Davidson motorcycle to pay back some of the money owed by their roadworks company Protection Barriers Pty Ltd.

ICAC investigators, NSW Police and the NSW Crime Commission were involved in a raid on Protection Barriers last September.

Luxury cars worth close to $1 million are being sold off by one of the state’s biggest roadworks companies to pay their outstanding debts, after they were seized in ICAC-led raids.

Jason and Meshell Chellew have to sell two Bentleys, a Lexus, a Land Rover and a Harley Davidson motorcycle to pay back some of the money owed by their company Protection Barriers Pty Ltd.

Protection Barriers’ financial woes came to the fore after ICAC investigators, along with NSW Police, raided their headquarters at Koolkhan, outside Grafton, last September as part of Operation Wyvern – an investigation into Transport for NSW (TfNSW).

Protection Barriers, founded by Jason Chellew and directed by his wife Meshell, had been awarded more than $110 million in tenders from Transport for NSW over the past decade for road safety work.

But in the wake of the September raids, the NSW Crime Commission – which was also involved – put restraining orders over a wide range of assets, including luxury vehicles and some machinery.

Protection Barriers Pty Ltd founder Jason Chellew (top) and a Bentley convertible and Harley Davidson motorbike like the ones that will be sold off.

Then, Protection Barriers went into voluntary administration in March, with ASIC documents detailing a list of creditors owed a total of $1.276 million.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal the NSW Supreme Court recently varied the restraining orders put in place by the Crime Commission, to allow for the sale of five vehicles, as well as a cryptocurrency wallet, to be sold and creditors paid.

Under the NSW Supreme Court orders, TfNSW was also instructed to “transfer funds owing to Protection Barriers” for any outstanding invoices for its work to the administrator to allow the necessary functions of the company’s administration.

ICAC recently announced it would be holding public hearings from Monday, July 14, as part of Operation Wyvern, which it said was “an investigation it is conducting into an allegation concerning Transport for NSW (TfNSW) employees”.

No charges have been laid and there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Protection Barriers staff, its founder Jason Chellew or his wife, director Meshell Chellew.

Despite the restraining orders being altered over some of the assets seized by the NSW Crime Commission, the Supreme Court case between it and the Chellews remains ongoing. It is next listed for a directions hearing on October 13, 2025.

A 2023 Bentley Bentayga wagon is on the sell list. Stock picture: Supplied

A 2023 Lexus, Model LX500D, is also to be sold. Picture: Supplied

Protection Barriers was founded in 2009 and has long been one of the largest installers of safety steel rope – known to many by the nickname “cheese graters” – in the state.

Government records show the business won two significant deals in recent years.

One of those contracts was initially set to see it paid $2.2 million for the “installation and maintenance (of) safety barrier at various locations within NSW” between 2016 and 2019.

But that contract was later increased to see Protection Barriers paid a whopping $104 million for a further six years, through to June 2025.

A second ongoing contract was set to see Protection Barriers paid $7.7 million to carry out the “installation and maintenance of safety barriers” as part of an unspecified project over a three-year period from July 1, 2024 through to June 30, 2027.

As part of a statement released last month, announcing the public hearings into Operation Wyvern, ICAC said it would be investigating “whether, since 2012, TfNSW employees partially and/or dishonestly exercised official functions by awarding contracts to, or favouring, companies on the TfNSW: safety barriers panel; asphalt panel; line-marking panel; bitumen and spray sealing panel; and traffic control panel, in return for benefits.”

Originally published as Luxury cars worth $1m to be sold off by embattled roadworks company Protection Barriers