“AFP detectives would like to include in the witness statement requested any information and documents you may have that may be evidence of a facilitation payment being sought and made.
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“Conversely, if you can say that the financial transactions … are legitimate business expenses incurred and paid for, that is also important to the AFP and should be included in the requested statement.”
The AFP has refused to disclose details of the investigation, but building industry and union sources said the agency was targeting up to 20 firms, including LTE, which operates on federal and state-funded projects in Victoria and Queensland, and Rangedale, which works on NSW and Victorian civil infrastructure works.
No charges have been laid and police suspicions have not been tested.
Both firms have previously featured in this masthead’s and 60 Minutes’ Building Bad series as having paid gangland identities Mick Gatto and John Khoury in order to cut deals with the CFMEU.
Building industry sources, speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive information, revealed another company that had placed Gatto on its books: Cobild.
Cobild’s development in Byron Bay.Credit: Cobild
The private construction firm has an estimated half a billion dollars’ worth of projects across Melbourne and in Byron Bay, and sources confirmed it made payments to Gatto to keep the CFMEU from pressuring it to offer union-brokered pay and conditions on its sites.
The payments from Cobild to Gatto, which have never before been reported, have been made as the firm expanded rapidly over the past three years.
Cobild has major projects in Victoria valued at between $70 million and $120 million in Toorak, Armadale and Frankston, as well as a luxury building venture in Byron Bay.
Cobild is owned by the Rotenberg family and managed by father and son team Coby and Rotem, who are not accused of any wrongdoing.
Cobild chief executive Rotem Rotenberg.Credit: Cobild
Gatto helped to organise a meeting between Cobild and the CFMEU in an attempt to ease pressure on the non-union firm.
The meeting took place prior to Irving’s appointment, who the federal Labor government commissioned to the CFMEU after this masthead’s Building Bad series broke last July.
