He confirmed that when he joined Helmy’s team, he was already aware that Helmy had arrangements with contractor Kerway Asphalting. Shortly afterwards, Le said he learnt of Helmy’s dealings with Twin City Sealing and, later that year, of his arrangements with Lack Group.
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The inquiry has previously heard that Le assisted Helmy in most of his alleged corrupt dealings. He is accused of collaborating with Helmy by allowing him to send emails from his account, purporting to be Le, and by saving tender documents to Transport for NSW’s document management system in a manner that was improper.
Le was terminated from his role at Transport for NSW in January after about eight years. He also worked at Roads and Maritime Services depot at St Marys between 2007 and 2014, where he first met Helmy in 2013.
Earlier on Thursday, Helmy’s former intimate partner Katya Wang, who also worked at Transport for NSW, conceded that she had an active interest in his illegal schemes and his meetings with contractors to collect cash.
During the hearing, she was shown numerous exchanges of phone messages that she had had with Helmy.
During one in June 2020, Helmy messaged her to say: “I’m always scamming strangers. I don’t wanna scam you too lol.”
Questioned about the message, Wang, 31, conceded that it related to road contractors Helmy dealt with in his role as a procurement officer at Transport for NSW.
Former Transport for NSW official Katya Wang appears before the ICAC inquiry into kickbacks.Credit: ICAC
She was also shown a message Helmy sent to her that same month which had attached to it an image of a spreadsheet that contained a figure of more than $200,000. Wang confirmed that the figure referred to the amount that Helmy inflated contractors’ work orders over a two-month period.
She has told the inquiry that she was last in contact with Helmy on September 9 last year, a day before officers from the ICAC and NSW Crime Commission raided his home and seized large amounts of cash and gold.
However, she said she did not become aware that an investigation was under way until a media report in October last year about raids on road contractor Protection Barriers. Wang was a Transport for NSW program governance and reporting officer until July this year when she left the agency.
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