‘Corrupt contractor’ behind Pilbara bribe allegations still working on Big Build

A Victorian company that bribed a West Australian official to win government contracts and extract “fat as” margins from infrastructure projects has remained working on state Labor’s Big Build program.

In the latest example of suspect contractors operating with seeming impunity on taxpayer-funded projects, Victoria’s peak infrastructure agency has declined to explain why Vicflow has continued operating on the Eastern Freeway upgrade, despite damning graft findings from Western Australia’s Corruption and Crime Commission.

In a report describing its two-year corruption probe and tabled in the West Australian parliament on October 1, the commission concluded that Vicflow had paid kickbacks to a local government official in the Pilbara to secure millions of dollars of contracts in the remote WA region.

On October 26, West Australian police charged one of the firm’s two Victorian directors, Richard Carroll, with bribery offences. One of the suspected bribery schemes involves a plot to inflate the purchase of a “shit box” ute from a local government official in return for contracts worth more than $5 million.

Last week, The Age asked the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority (VIDA) why Vicflow was still a Big Build subcontractor, including on the Eastern Freeway upgrade, and whether any steps had been taken in light of the serious corruption findings in the west.

The authority provided no specific response to the questions, and said only that it “continues to engage with its contractors to strengthen integrity controls and is committed to fully co-operating with the royal commission and supporting its inquiry into integrity on construction sites”.

The VIDA statement came just hours before the Kourakis royal commission separately lashed the authority for failing to fully co-operate with the Victorian inquiry, by accusing it of stalling the release to the commission of key documents and communications about suspected wrongdoing and improper preferential subcontracting on Big Build projects.

While Vicflow is not a target in the royal commission’s first block of public hearings, the findings made by WA’s Corruption and Crime Commission about the firm’s corrupt conduct in the Pilbara shares similarities with suspected cases of graft and improper subcontractor tendering that have infected the Big Build.

Vicflow is the latest in a growing list of companies that have continued operating on the Big Build despite being the subject of serious allegations of involvement in crime or graft.

Last month, a Vicflow competitor and Big Build contractor, Heavy Hire Pty Ltd, was revealed by The Age to have been founded and controlled by an accused cocaine trafficker who previously shot a man.

In March, The Age revealed how multiple Big Build subcontractors, including Elite Roads, had paid gangland figures such as Mick Gatto to ensure union-backed access to Big Build road and rail projects.

The Kourakis royal commission will this week continue to examine how Big Build labour hire firm BK Labour – which has been previously embroiled in alleged criminal conduct and is suspected by Victorian police of making suspect payments to win work on taxpayer-funded sites – was forced by the CFMEU onto the Gap Road level crossing removal project in Sunbury in 2022.

In extraordinary evidence aired last week, the royal commission heard from major contractors and an ex-CFMEU official that the office of then-transport minister Jacinta Allan might have helped the union to pressure the rail project’s managers to hire BK as well as a traffic management firm.

Critical to the royal commission’s work is exposing suspected improper and nepotistic dealings that have allowed select CFMEU subcontractors to win work on the Big Build at the expense of cheaper firms.

The inquiry is also examining why companies with known links to corruption or the underworld have been permitted to operate as Big Build subcontractors over cleaner rivals.

Vicflow operated on the Big Build with a CFMEU-backed enterprise bargaining agreement that was signed off in 2022, and re-signed in 2025, by the company’s director, Richard Carroll.

Carroll and Vicflow became the target of a WA corruption agency probe in mid-2024 after a tip-off that the company might have won millions of dollars in local government civil works contracts in the Pilbara by bribing Shire of East Pilbara manager Bevan Klein.

Carroll and Klein were both charged last month by WA police over allegations Vicflow funnelled more than $50,000 in bribes to Klein in return for securing a series of lucrative contracts.

In one text message between Vicflow managers, detailed in the Crime and Corruption Commission report tabled in West Australian parliament, the allegedly corruptly procured contracts were described as having “fat as f---” margins.

The evidence aired in the corruption commission’s October 1 report included admissions from Vicflow managers made in September 2025 which revealed that they had gifted to Klein seafood and clothes vouchers, a computer, power tools and $12,500 in cash.

Text messages between Carroll and his fellow Melbourne-based Vicflow owner, Damien Fogarty, also revealed a scheme in 2022 in which the pair’s firm paid an inflated price for a 2014 Mitsubishi Triton valued at $17,000 and owned by Klein.

“We can pay overs for a shit box and he gets the cash,” Carroll told Fogarty in the 2022 text about the deal, which ultimately involved Vicflow purchasing Klein’s ute for $40,000.

In its conclusions, the WA Crime and Corruption Commission said it was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that “the relationship between Mr Klein and the Vicflow companies involved a corrupt exchange of benefits – Mr Klein received gifts from the Vicflow companies and the Vicflow companies received work sourced from Mr Klein”.

While the corruption commission did not have the jurisdiction to make findings about Carroll or Fogarty because they are not government officials, it concluded that “Klein acted corruptly … for the private purpose of benefiting himself, the Vicflow companies and Mr Carroll [and] Mr Fogarty”.

The corruption commission also cautioned that its “opinion that serious misconduct has occurred” was not a finding of criminal liability. Only a jury or judge can find a person guilty.

On Sunday, Carroll refused to answer questions about the corruption commission’s report, although he said he had not disclosed it to any major contractor or VIDA.

Asked to comment on the findings, he said: “I’m not getting sucked into this”, before hanging up the phone.

The revelations also highlight the absence of adequate fit and proper tests for government contractors.

Carroll and Klein are to reappear in a WA court in February. Fogarty could not be reached for comment.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.