By Matt O'Sullivan and Cindy Yin
A road contractor has claimed an allegedly corrupt Transport for NSW official hassled him relentlessly to pay bundles of cash of up to $120,000 for inflating work contracts, and even pressed him to buy a luxury Mercedes-Benz car.
An anti-corruption inquiry heard that Capital Lines & Signs director Andrew Stewart met the then-Transport for NSW manager Ibrahim Helmy on at least 10 occasions between May 2020 and 2024, including in a McDonald’s car park near the Big Merino at Goulburn, where he handed over $85,000 in cash.
Stewart confirmed that he paid Helmy cash of between $20,000 and $110,000 on each of their eight meetings, including payments of $100,000 on two occasions. “[Helmy] was relentless. He’d ring me out of the blue, and he would always harass me for money,” he told the inquiry.
Capital Lines & Signs director Andrew Stewart appears before ICAC on Wednesday.
He also said that Helmy pressed him to pay in cryptocurrency, and that he wanted him to buy him a yellow Mercedes-Benz CLA45-S class car and put it in his sister’s name.
The inquiry was shown a WhatsApp message Helmy sent to Stewart on February 17, 2023, which contained a photo of a yellow Mercedes-Benz car.
Stewart said that Helmy had told him in a conversation two days earlier that he wanted him to buy him the car worth about $130,000. “All I said to him was I’ll look at it,” Stewart recalled to the inquiry. “He sent me the details … but I never purchased the car. I did look online.”
The Independent Commission Against Corruption is investigating allegations Helmy was the mastermind behind corrupt relationships with nine companies, including Capital Lines & Signs, that were paid at least $343 million in contracts by Transport for NSW.
A photo of the yellow Mercedes-Benz car tendered to the ICAC inquiry.Credit: ICAC
Helmy, 38, is alleged to have pocketed $11.5 million in kickbacks – including bundles of cash, gold bullion and cryptocurrency – over 15 years from contractors, in return for them being awarded work. He failed to appear before the ICAC in May and police have a warrant out for his arrest.
It is alleged that Capital Lines & Signs was awarded about $36 million of work from April 2020 to June this year as a result of corrupt dealings with Helmy.
Former Transport for NSW staffer Ibrahim Helmy, 38, is wanted for failing to appear before the ICAC.
In one instance detailed to the inquiry on Wednesday, the inflated amount for a Hume Highway project carried out by Stewart’s line marking and signage business was more than $1 million higher than an original quote.
Under questioning from ICAC counsel assisting Rob Ranken, SC, Stewart said he was aware that Helmy was inflating invoices for work that Capital Lines was receiving from Transport for NSW, and that the inflated amount was to be split 50:50 between them. “He just insisted, insisted [sic] on 50 per cent,” Stewart said.
Stewart confirmed to the inquiry that he paid Helmy a total of $604,500 in cash between 2020 and 2024, and that the last bundle he handed him was during a meeting in Granville in March 2024.
He recalled how Helmy was “pretty helpful to deal with” in comparison to other Transport for NSW staff when they first met in 2020. “I just thought he was helping,” Stewart recalled. “He did say to me that he could help us get some work.”
However, on recollection, Stewart said that he believed he was groomed into taking part in the arrangement by Helmy, who had approached him. “I reckon he groomed me into it. I have never had someone do that – inflate my rates,” he said.
Stewart said Helmy did not ask for anything in return for his help at the start but later “got a shock” in early 2021 when he saw that the rates his company had submitted for work had been inflated. “It was probably about two months into the contract when I had seen the rates had changed,” he said.
The last occasion the pair met was in Campbelltown in 2024, during which Stewart said Helmy wanted money. “That was Ibrahim – he was always asking [for] money,” he told the inquiry.
Questioned about why he had not reported Helmy to Transport for NSW given the impropriety, Stewart said he should have but was afraid it was too late to do so because he was “already involved” in the arrangement.
“I thought I was already into it – it was too late,” he said. “It’s done now. I gotta live with it.”
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