Senior member strikes deal to provide security on Nauru

“Your duties will include providing security and emergency response services at the compound, maintaining site safety, and adhering to all operational protocols,” the employment offer states.

The fly-in, fly-out security guards agreed to an annual salary of $120,000 for the roles, which require them to be based in Nauru for six months of the year.

The Australian Federal Police and the Department of Home Affairs are both mentioned in internal correspondence about the deployment from Safe Hands Group director Jelena Brozinic.

“AFP is now in direct contact with Nauru Airlines … AFP has confirmed that they will provide a formal start date through Home Affairs once their internal logistics are finalised,” Brozinic stated in an internal message on April 9.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Home Affairs said it had no “direct or subcontracted arrangement” with Nauru Community Safety and denied the organisation had any role in Australia’s offshore detention centre on the island.

“Arrangements between the government of Nauru and other entities are a matter for them,” the spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said US firm Management and Training Corporation was responsible for the “facilities, garrison, transferee arrivals and reception services at the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru”.

Australia’s offshore processing policy has involved sending asylum seekers to the Nauru detention centre since 2001, with about 100 detainees presently held in the facility.

This masthead can also reveal that Geelong resident Timothy Jones was appointed by Nauru Community Safety as its general manager of operations, despite his extensive links with Safe Hands Group, Bilal and the Finks.

Jones, who did not respond to requests for comment, was previously employed by Safe Hands Group as a general manager until about 2022, according to a now-deleted LinkedIn profile.

He is also the owner of a $1 million property in the NSW town of Gunning, about 75 kilometres north of Canberra, where Bilal and his wife, Chloe, reside and breed greyhounds.

His son, Branden Jones, 26, is an associate of the Finks who became director of Safe Hands 002 Pty Ltd in August 2023, before the company was placed into liquidation last year owing almost $894,000 in “outstanding tax lodgements” to the Australian Tax Office.

Safe Hands Group Pty Ltd was registered in February 2023, before assets and clients were transferred between the two companies in an alleged case of “phoenixing”. However, corporate regulators and the ATO have not taken any enforcement action.

It is unknown who appointed Timothy Jones to the management position with Nauru Community Safety, which removed profiles of its entire leadership team from its website on Monday, following inquiries from this masthead.

The deal with Safe Hands Group to subcontract guards to Nauru was made just months after the Albanese government signed a treaty with Nauru President David Waiau Ranibok Adeang in December, when Australia committed a further $40 million for security and policing.

Under the treaty, Nauru committed to “mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other state or entity on matters relating to Nauru’s security”.

Last month, this masthead revealed Australian company Canstruct, which received $1.82 billion to run Australia’s asylum seeker processing regime on Nauru for five years until late 2022, was the subject of an AFP investigation over serious fraud allegations.

Transparency International Australia chief executive Clancy Moore said Nauru had been plagued by allegations of corruption and money-laundering.

“Home Affairs should be doing enhanced due diligence on any government-funded contractors operating in Nauru,” Moore said. “This includes putting subcontractors under the microscope for risks including criminal history, links with politically exposed persons, and ownership structures.

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“Taxpayer funds lining the pockets of companies owned by bikie gangs to provide security services in Nauru is a giant red flag for the government.”

He urged the federal government to introduce legislation for a centralised, publicly available beneficial ownership register to monitor those who own and benefit from corporate structures.

The consulate-general of Nauru and the Nauru high commission did not respond to questions. Phone calls to the Nauru parliament were not returned.

This masthead does not suggest any wrongdoing by managers of Nauru Community Safety.

Safe Hands Group and its director Brozinic, who has been employed by Bilal for more than a decade, including at a now-defunct hospitality business called London Burger, did not respond to requests for comment.

Bilal also did not respond to questions, but has previously denied his involvement with the Finks and Rebels bikie gangs.

However, police officers made submissions in the ACT Supreme Court, the ACT Magistrates’ Court and the Greyhound Welfare and Integrity Commission claiming the 53-year-old was a senior figure in the ACT chapter of the Finks outlaw motorcycle gang.

Detective Sergeant Owen Patterson, of the anti-bikie taskforce Nemesis, said in court in April that Bilal was previously a leader of the ACT Rebels, which disbanded and became the “All Brothers Crew”, or the Ali Bilal Crew, in late 2022 or early 2023.

Patterson told the court that members then eventually “patched over” to the Finks in 2023, and that Bilal was believed to have been appointed “world president” of the gang.

In February last year, a greyhound hearing was provided with an email from NSW Police constable Mitchell Clark, who confirmed officers attended Bilal’s property in Wollogorang, about 60 kilometres north-east of Canberra.

The police were conducting a compliance inspection for a firearm prohibition order served on Bilal, who was not home at the time. But, according to Clark’s email, police were confronted by two other members of the Finks, one of whom was charged with assaulting an officer.

“A Finks OMCG [outlaw motorcycle gang] vest was in the wardrobe of the main bedroom, this is believed to belong to Ali Bilal,” Clark said in the email on September 27, 2023. “Ali Bilal is the president of the Finks OMCG interstate chapter and resides at this address.”

In 2022, Bilal was sentenced to three months in prison after pleading guilty to five charges relating to using a carriage service to harass or threaten, after his conversations were captured by telephone intercepts.

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In one recording played to the ACT Magistrates’ Court, Bilal ordered a woman to arrange a meeting with an unnamed man.

“Get him to meet me. That’s it,” Bilal yelled. “I’m gonna f— him … I’m not gonna leave anybody tonight.”

Despite being sentenced to prison for behaviour chief magistrate Lorraine Walker described as “manipulative aggression”, Bilal was able to set up a new company with ASIC in February named Hostile Takeovers Pty Ltd, which lists him as the sole owner and director. The company trades under the business name Black Dog Group Services.

In 2012, Bilal was charged with possession of steroids. But because he had changed his name by deed poll in 2002 to Tony Soprano, officers decided to charge both Bilal and Soprano with three counts of steroid possession.

When the matter proceeded to court, Bilal’s lawyer said his client had reverted to his original name, which prompted prosecutors to drop the charges against Soprano. The case against Bilal also collapsed when the prosecution offered no evidence.

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