Monday, May 24, 2010

A Reserve Bank currency firm was willing to supply prostitutes and pay bribes...

Today's Age, tonight's Four Corners:

Sex, bribes in banknote deals

RICHARD BAKER AND NICK MCKENZIE

A RESERVE Bank currency firm was willing to supply prostitutes and pay bribes to win contracts, according to a federal police witness at the centre of Australia's most serious corruption investigation.

The revelation is one of many made by a key witness in the federal police inquiry into the Reserve Bank company, Securency International, which makes polymer banknotes.

The witness has told an investigation by The Age and ABC TV's Four Corners - aired tonight - that a middleman hired by Securency to win contracts from foreign governments told him that he intended to bribe a central bank governor from an Asian country.

The witness, who was a Securency employee, has given the Australian Federal Police his diary in which he recorded the middleman telling him in 2007 that the ''governor would be very happy if the commission [payment] was increased''...



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