Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker, John Garnaut
The Age
June 23, 2015
Even in Melbourne’s booming property market, the $22.5 million price tag for a building designed like an IKEA cupboard seemed well above the odds. That’s because it was.
Named Dudley House by developers keen to imbue it with a sense of grandeur, it seems the last place to host any untoward dealings.
But the sordid tale of this building highlights one reason that federal treasurer Joe Hockey is so concerned about the foreign funds flowing into an already overheated property market, as well as why local and international corruption fighters say Australia has become an investment hot spot for the crooked and corrupt.
An eight-month Fairfax Media investigation has traced suspicious money flows, court files and corporate records across three continents to uncover why Dudley House’s purchase price was so high.
Its sale was part of a global money laundering and bribery scheme engineered by greedy local developers and powerful officials overseas who pocketed $4.75 million in bribes on this single deal.
Fairfax Media has also discovered that some of these same figures are linked to tax haven companies which are also behind the purchase of around $80 million in Australian properties. Continue reading “Corrupt Malaysia money distorts Melbourne market”