A private investigator says he was asked to surveil a Liberal minister and provided secret recording devices to a fugitive property developer, the New South Wales anti-corruption watchdog has heard. Shane De Kauwe told the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) on Tuesday he had installed a static camera on a building to record a person connected with the former NSW Liberal MP David Elliott. Icac is investigating the allegation that Liberal figures Christian Ellis, Jeremy Greenwood and Charles Perrottet took $2m in illegal donations from the fugitive property developer Jean Nassif or his company Toplace in exchange for political outcomes.
Greenwood and Perrottet have denied payments were for political outcomes, while Ellis has moved overseas and is not expected to give evidence. Nassif, in an explosive appearance from his Beirut bedroom, insisted he was “not corrupt”. The alleged outcomes include damage to the political career of Elliott, who had opposed Toplace developments, and the removal of the former building commissioner, David Chandler, who was scrutinising defects in Toplace apartments.
On Tuesday, De Kauwe said he took instructions to surveil Elliott from the Toplace lawyer and executive Sharangan Maheswaran, who he understood to be negatively disposed to the MP. He said he was asked to investigate the unsubstantiated allegation that Elliott had previously breached Covid restrictions in 2020, including the identity of a woman he was alleged to have met with, which Maheswaran wanted to give to a journalist. He said he surveilled Elliott, at that time the veterans minister, during his attendance at an Anzac Day parade, but “didn’t find anything”.
In a fiery appearance at the commission, Elliott, who is not accused of any wrongdoing, described De Kauwe as the “Maxwell Smart of the NSW private investigator industry”. De Kauwe admitted that he used a ladder to install a static camera in 2022 on a apartment building opposite a car park with a view to capturing the woman’s car, invoicing Toplace $15,000 . The presiding commissioner, Fabian Gleeson, asked: “You acknowledge you had no authority to install a static camera on the building where you did install it?” De Kauwe detailed continued requests by Nassif to surveil Elliott, Chandler and the 2GB radio host Ray Hadley, even after the developer fled Australia for Lebanon in 2022.
On Tuesday morning, De Kauwe said he had provided covert recording devices to Maheswaran, Nassif and Greenwood. He said the “two or three devices” provided to Maheswaran may have included voice recorder pens and a recording device he described as a “little square” which “looks like a tag you would drop on your keys” and was widely available online. He said he had given Nassif a second recording device “because he couldn’t work the first one”, saying Nassif wanted to record a conversation with two men who were allegedly asking for $5m on Chandler’s behalf to provide occupancy certificates for Toplace’s developments.
De Kauwe, who said he thought the men were attempting to defraud Nassif rather than acting on Chandler’s behalf, told the commission he reported the allegations to a contact at NSW police. The commission has heard they are unsubstantiated, and Chandler is not accused of any wrongdoing. De Kauwe accepted he had invoiced Maheswaran for $13,400 to surveil Chandler over six days in 2021.
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