A bag of smuggled documents was intercepted at a nearby carpark during a police raid of Health Services Union (HSU) headquarters in Sydney, as detectives fear someone tried to 'interfere with' evidence.
At least one staff member may now be charged as part of the corruption investigation, fraud and cyber crime squad commander Col Dyson said.
"I have major concerns, however, efforts have been made to interfere with information relevant to our investigation," he told reporters after the Wednesday morning raid.
"I don't dismiss the possibility of criminal charges arising from those efforts."
Fraud squad officers from Strike Force Carnarvon raided the HSU offices on Pitt Street, in Sydney's CBD, about 9am (AEST).
They seized forensic accounting documents and computers.
Mr Dyson said police also discovered a bag of documents relevant to the investigation in the carpark of the office block.
"Yes, that is correct," detective superintendent Dyson told reporters.
"The bag of documents was intercepted."
Mr Dyson would not say if the documents had been discovered on a person, dumped or in a car.
He said HSU staff were co-operative with the search warrant but police had spoken to an individual and may lay charges against that person.
"I would anticipate the charges will be put forward in the relatively near future," Mr Dyson said.
Police said the scope of the warrant focuses on information about the union dates back to the mid-1990s.
LONG TIME COMING: JACKSON
The police raid on the Sydney offices of the Health Services Union will likely uncover evidence of corruption, says the union's national secretary Kathy Jackson.
Ms Jackson, who is also executive president of HSU East branch, said she expected the information taken in the raid would uncover corrupt behaviour.
She also agreed with suggestions that HSU executives had created their own fiefdom and engaged in free-for-all business practices.
"I have no doubt that the police will uncover documents that will prove that," Ms Jackson told reporters outside the HSU East premises.
She said the raid was "a long time coming" and a sad day for "the organisation that needs cleaning up".
Ms Jackson said the union could have avoided Wednesday's raid if it had agreed to speak with police at previous opportunities.
She also said it was possible that some of the information may have been discarded from the time she brought her allegations to police in September last year.
"That's a real possibility, but that's a matter for the police to work out," she said.
Ms Jackson dismissed speculation the raid was planned after Prime Minister Julia Gillard dumped former HSU boss turned federal MP Craig Thomson from the Labor party last week.
"I think that's just about all of the government realising that D-Day was coming and they had to act," she said.
"The perfect time would have been if she had acted eight months ago."
DPP DECLINES TO ADVISE ON HSU REPORT
The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) has declined to advise a Senate committee on whether a report into the embattled Health Services Union (HSU) could be released publicly without legal implications.
The Senate workplace committee is considering whether to table a report by Fair Work Australia into financial impropriety in the HSU's national office.
It is understood Craig Thomson, the union's former national secretary who has stepped aside from the ALP to sit as an independent MP, is one of those named in the report.
FWA general manager Bernadette O'Neill is considering whether to take any of the investigation report's findings to the Federal Court for action against former and current HSU officials.
She is expected to complete her work within the next fortnight and then provide the full report to the Senate committee for public release under parliamentary privilege.
The committee has been asked by one of those named in the report not to table the report as it would prejudice future court cases.
The committee chairman, Labor senator Gavin Marshall, asked the CDPP whether the officer believed tabling the report would prejudice future court cases.
In a letter to the committee released on Wednesday, chief prosecutor Chris Craigie - who has seen the FWA report but does not consider it a brief of evidence - said he could not advise the committee.
"In circumstances where there has been no criminal investigation completed and no brief of evidence referred to my office, I am not able to say that my office is presently conducting or about to conduct criminal litigation such that would bring into consideration the principles you refer to (about subjudice)," Mr Craigie wrote.
Share
