Senior manager at bikie-linked security firm charged over threats to Age journalist
Police allege the call was made the morning after MA Services Group collapsed into voluntary administration.
Senior manager at bikie-linked security firm charged over threats to Age journalist
A senior manager of bikie-linked security company MA Services Group has been charged with threatening the safety of investigative journalist Nick McKenzie following a call allegedly made to his home on Christmas Eve.
Victoria Police said a 31-year-old man from Melbourne’s north-west was charged with two counts of using a carriage service to menace/cause offence by detectives from Taskforce Hawk, the special unit set up to investigate crime and corruption linked to the construction industry.
Journalist Nick McKenzie.Credit: Sam Mooy
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have published a series of stories detailing the alleged links of MA Services Group to a bikie club, its subcontractors being accused of tax evasion and worker exploitation, and a sexual harassment scandal involving its founder, Micky Ahuja.
McKenzie is a multi-award winning journalist who works for The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes.
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MA Services Group has a series of lucrative but controversial contracts guarding immigration detainees on the Pacific Island of Nauru, and for a number of Commonwealth government agencies, including Australia’s peak criminal intelligence agency.
A search warrant was executed at a residential address in the suburb of Fraser Rise about 7am on Wednesday, where a 31-year-old man was arrested, interviewed and charged by police.
“Investigators will allege he made a threatening phone call to a journalist on the morning of 24 December,” a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
The man was MA Services Group’s national business development manager.
The group, which also had security contracts with AFL clubs, Coles, Kmart, Bunnings, Dan Murphy’s, Amazon, Sydney University and Melbourne’s Formula 1 grand prix, collapsed into voluntary administration just two days before Christmas.