Cyber entrepreneur files for bankruptcy after government contract collapse<\/a><\/p>\nCryptoloc shut down operations in December, months after being awarded a $15 million Queensland government contract.<\/p>\n
The department also had not assessed the completeness of Cryptoloc Holding’s financial information, the auditors wrote, and questions surrounded those documents.<\/p>\n
The auditors’ searches of government registries and three major accountancy organisations could not find the documents’ listed accountant, either as a registered tax agent or member of the accountancy organisations.<\/p>\n
Also, the profit and loss statement and balance sheet were “presented in a non-standard and unexpected format”, the auditors noted.<\/p>\n
Cryptoloc Holdings’ balance sheet listed having $2.432 million in its bank account in August 2024, prompting the auditors to advise: “For a small Australian business who has accumulated losses to date of $1.133 million, bank account balances of this magnitude are highly unusual.”<\/p>\n
![\"Jamie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/89c72b97a6e0d7abc61dd97fa7bda2bf.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Cryptoloc Holdings executive chairman Jamie Wilson had been an enthusiastic networker. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Equifax’s report to the government, meanwhile, had flagged “adverse” findings against two other companies of which Mr Wilson was a director. But “there does not appear to have been any consideration of these ‘adverse’ findings”, the auditors wrote.<\/p>\n
In fact, the panel had finalised its supplier recommendation even before receiving Equifax’s report. “This indicates that financial stability was not comprehensively evaluated, despite being a key criterion,” the auditors wrote.<\/p>\n
‘Robust’ procurement process<\/p>\n
The auditors themselves found gaps, with some “key stakeholders” involved in procurement unable to be consulted after transferring to another department.<\/p>\n
Bureaucrats vowed that a guideline for assessing financial viability would be developed, including “conducting financial document integrity checks”.<\/p>\n
Attempts to contact Mr Wilson, who has declared bankruptcy, have been unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
He has previously denied to the ABC any wrongdoing and said the company had been performing to the contract’s requirements.<\/p>\n
Open Data Minister Steven Minnikin’s office said questions remained for then-Labor ministers, including current Opposition Leader Steven Miles, about the then-government having signed “a murky deal \u2026 despite major red flags”.<\/p>\n
That included why the value of the program increased and “why was the contract rushed through in the final hours before caretaker period began”, it said.<\/p>\n
But an opposition spokesman maintained: “Government procurement should always be managed by the department at arms-length away from ministers to ensure contracts are independently awarded as was the case with this matter.”<\/p>\n
“Departments should have robust processes in place,” they said.<\/p>\n
Neither the LNP’s Mr Minnikin nor the opposition would answer if they thought Cryptoloc-linked donations should be returned.<\/p>\n
Equifax declined to comment on specific cases but told the ABC that generally its risk scorecards were “not a forensic financial audit”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queensland’s former state government awarded an ultimately doomed $15 million contract to a politically connected cybersecurity company despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,25156,21,8409,25155,5327,211,3227],"class_list":["post-27190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-audit","tag-austrlia","tag-contract","tag-cryptoloc-holdings","tag-cybersecurity","tag-qld","tag-queensland-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Ronan](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/6c8be10c8b81118ad75ed32b280f8021.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/26addbf360f99f850ff68f91ff312363.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n