Raymond Shlemon has been sentenced to an overall sentence of 3 years and 14 days imprisonment for paying a bribe to former Australian Taxation Office (ATO) employee Wenfeng Wei, in exchange for reducing millions of dollars in personal and business tax debts and for providing restricted information for more than 5 years and offering a corrupting benefit to the same ATO official in 2022.
Following a guilty plea in December 2023, the District Court of NSW convicted Shlemon on 19 August 2024 of two contraventions contrary to section 141.1(1) and 142.1(1) of the Criminal Code (Cth) being bribing a Commonwealth public official and giving corrupting benefits to a Commonwealth public official.
One instance of corrupt conduct occurred in August 2016 and involved Shlemon bribing Wei with $100,000 cash handed over at Granville railway station. The money, in a white plastic bag, was paid in exchange for Wei significantly underwriting an audit of Shlemon and a business linked to him by millions of dollars. The steps Wei took also ensured no taxation penalties were imposed on Shlemon.
In outlining the seriousness of the corrupt conduct, the Court found:
The bribery of a Commonwealth official is a very serious crime. Whilst a public official who accepts a bribe commits an offence involving a serious breach of trust, the conduct of the person bribing the official is not invariably less serious. …
… The payment of the bribe on 19 August 2016 was incredibly brazen, involving the handing over of a cash bribe on a railway station to Wei.
Shlemon’s sentence follows the 5 year prison sentence of Wei in March 2024. A third individual charged has pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the payment of a bribe and is due to be sentenced in November 2024.
This sentencing outcome stems from Operation Barker, a joint investigation commenced by the former Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI) and the ATO, which transitioned to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and was prosecuted by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) (CDPP).
This is the fourth conviction obtained in matters continued by the NACC since 1 July 2023.
Operation Barker was supported by the ATO, Australian Federal Police (AFP), New South Wales Police (NSWPF), the Department of Home Affairs, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).