• Two Australian individuals have been accused of buying contracts for millions of dollars worth of infrastructure from the Sri Lankan government.
• The guys, who were 67 and 71 years old, were employed by a business that had been cited for wrongdoing in South Asian nations.
• They will appear in court on Tuesday despite having not yet answered the accusations.

Two Australian individuals have been accused of buying contracts for millions of dollars worth of infrastructure from the Sri Lankan government.

The two were taken into custody by Australian police last month as the result of an international investigation that lasted ten years.

The guys, who were 67 and 71 years old, were employed by a business that had been cited for wrongdoing in South Asian nations.

They will appear in court on Tuesday despite having not yet answered the accusations.

According to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), between 2009 and 2016, the men orchestrated bribes totaling more than $304,000 ($190,000, £172,000) for government officials.

The bribes were allegedly paid in order to pursue two $14 million Sri Lankan projects, the names of which the police withheld.

Authorities from the US, Canada, India, and other countries participated in the investigation against the engineering business SMEC International Pty Ltd, which has its headquarters in Australia.

The AFP stated that additional arrests and charges may be made.

Detective Supt. Helen Schneider stated that corruption “undermines fair competition and can have severe effects on developing economies, worldwide anti-poverty and development efforts.”

Originally established in 1949 to construct a famous Australian infrastructure project, SMEC was once known as the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation. Since then, it has expanded to 5,400 employees across numerous nations.

In 2017, the World Bank put SMEC and its four subsidiaries in India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka under temporary suspension from participating in its procurement processes.

The World Bank claimed to have found proof connecting the corporation to alleged “inappropriate payments” in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

At the time, a SMEC spokeswoman stated that the accusations had nothing to do with any Australian projects and that the business will keep enhancing its corporate integrity compliance initiatives.

This year, protests have broken out in Sri Lanka as a result of charges of corruption and the greatest economic crisis in the nation’s history.

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