Suitcases stuffed with cash were allegedly used to influence former Indonesian president Suharto to approve contracts to buy the Reserve Bank of Australia's plastic banknotes, according to a sworn witness statement made by a Jakarta middleman.
Radius Christanto, who worked as a lobbyist and agent for allegedly corrupt RBA currency firms Securency and Note Printing Australia between 1998 and 2009, has also claimed in his federal police witness statement that he gave a shoebox full of US dollars to a relative of a senior Chinese Communist Party member.
This is the first time the RBA firms – which were charged in 2011 with foreign bribery offences in Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal and Vietnam – have been linked to alleged corruption in China.
The federal police recruited Mr Christanto as a star witness in 2012 in a case that has become Australia's worst foreign bribery scandal and which has involved the charging of several former RBA banknote executives, and raised serious questions about whether the RBA's governance regime allowed alleged corruption to flourish.
But while the allegations Mr Christanto makes in his police statement are explosive, he recently reneged on several of his sworn claims during vigorous cross-examination by defence barristers. Securency and NPA won two banknote contracts from Indonesia with Mr Christanto's help.
Mr Christanto recently told the Melbourne Magistrates Court that he never paid cash bribes, telling the court that the payments to the Suharto regime were donations rather than kickbacks and were not made with the direct knowledge of the former RBA banknote executives currently facing charges.
This contrasts with his statement, in which Mr Christanto claimed that in 1998 senior Securency managers asked him to find a lobbyist to “take care of” prominent Indonesian politicians, including then president Suharto, and to do things "the Indonesian way".
“At this time, the president of Indonesia was president Suharto and the government was considered to be very corrupt by foreign businessmen, including [senior managers] at Securency,” Mr Christanto said in his statement, which also alleged the cash paid to Suharto's "right-hand man" filled "four small suitcases".
Mr Christanto told the Melbourne Magistrates Court in October that he had a trusted friend make the "donation" on his behalf to help Securency gain recognition from key Indonesian decision makers.
The alleged Suharto "donation" was made months before Mr Christanto formally signed an agency agreement with Securency but while he was corresponding with Securency representatives and responding to their requests for information on Indonesia's attitude towards the company's plastic banknotes.
Under cross-examination, Mr Christanto appeared confused as to who, if anyone, from the RBA firms he had told about the alleged Suharto regime payment. The court transcripts show Mr Christanto initially telling the court that he had told Securency's UK-based sales chief Hugh Brown about the alleged payment, although he denied doing so minutes later.
The court transcripts show Mr Christanto said he provided expensive rounds of golf and gave laptop computers to Indonesian central bank officials while he was formally representing Securency, although said he could not remember when this was done.
He also told the court that he was helping several other banknote and technology companies win contracts in Asia at the same time he was acting for the RBA firms.
It is illegal under Australia's bribery laws to provide a benefit to a foreign official in return for a business advantage. Mr Christanto, whose English is not fluent, also agreed with suggestions from defence lawyers that the AFP had added details to his statement that he disputed or could not recall. He said he had signed the statement without closely reading the final version.
Mr Christanto admitted in his police statement and under cross-examination that he lied to Securency management about the need to make extra payments to central bank officials after Mr Brown allegedly reneged on a verbal commitment to pay him a 20 per cent commission on a Bank Indonesia contract.
Faxes and emails from mid-1999 show that Securency management eventually agreed to increase the size of his commission to about $US4.77 million.
Mr Christanto's police statement also contains details of his work for Securency in China, which included a $US150,000 payment to a lobbyist called “Mr Kuok”, who claimed to be “family of a senior [Communist] party member” and could provide an introduction to a “senior government minister".
“I withdrew the money in Chinese yuan and then bought US dollars and gave those in a box the size of a shoebox,” his police statement says.
Mr Christanto told police he hosted dinners for senior Chinese central bank officials at 5-star hotels and that a Securency executive who was also working for the RBA at the same time had attended at least three such banquets.
Mr Christanto told police he arranged for a delegation of Chinese bank officials to travel to the Gold Coast in 1999. Securency covered part of the costs. China awarded Securency a small contract to print a commemorative banknote in 2000.
Mr Christanto told police the then head of the Chinese government's banknote printer, Gu Daoming, told him and two Securency executives personally that the small contract “was only a small step and if everything went well there would be larger contracts".
He alleged to police that he spent $US1 million on lobbying Chinese officials and politicians on Securency's behalf. But cross-examined, Mr Christanto admitted that he had made up some of his China expenses in the hope that Securency would pay him a larger commission fee.
He also admitted he was representing several other banknote companies in China at the same time.
Mr Christanto's police statement referred to a former senior Securency executive taking Romania's central bank governor on a holiday to Hayman Island. It also alleged that Securency's Vietnamese lobbyist and agent, Anh Ngoc Luong, told Mr Christanto in 2004 that he was a colonel in his country's internal security agency.
Commonwealth prosecutors withdrew charges against one former Securency executive, Mitchell Anderson, after Mr Christanto finished giving evidence.
The committal hearing for several other former banknote executives continues.
