Australia has awarded public contracts to companies suspected of embezzlement and illicit trafficking as part of its controversial policy of detaining migrants abroad. This emerges from the conclusions of a study published on Monday.
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This investigation revealed that several companies and individuals who received these contracts were suspected of involvement in money laundering, arms trafficking, drug trafficking or corruption.
“It is possible that hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money went to companies that used some of that money to commit criminal acts,” said Home Secretary Clare O'Neil, who ordered the “investigation.”
Starting in 2001, Australia transferred thousands of people trying to reach the country by boat to “processing centers” on the Pacific islands of Manus and Nauru.
Many migrants languish for years in camps in conditions that human rights groups describe as “hellish.”
After media reports suggested that some companies involved in this policy were suspicious, Dennis Richardson, the former head of the domestic intelligence agency, was appointed to investigate.
It found that “contracts with relatively small” and virtually unknown companies “lacked sufficient controls.”
The owners of one of these contracting companies “were suspected of attempting to circumvent U.S. sanctions against Iran and making large suspicious money transfers that suggested money laundering, bribery and other illegal activities.”
Other people or companies were hired or were suspected of corruption as part of this project despite ongoing police investigations, including drug and arms trafficking to Australia.
Australia's offshore migrant detention program was heavily criticized by human rights activists but continued for decades.
The British government also has a similarly controversial plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda.