Monday, September 12th.
12:00 a.m.
Profiting from the pandemic: How Aspen Medical cashed in on COVID | Four Corners
https://youtu.be/FoQKMfA3zPA?t=2230
ABC News Australia
Four Corners / By Linton Besser, Ali Russell, Lucy Carter and Patrick Begley, ABC Investigations. Posted Sun 1 May 2022 at 11:40pm. Sunday 1 May 2022 at 11:40pm, updated Mon 9 May 2022 at 12:11pm
LINTON BESSER, ABC News Australia:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-02/aspen-medical-greg-hunt-four-corners/101022086
The police could find no evidence that Cyber Vision Holdings or Nimal Perera had performed any service for the money paid by Aspen Medical.
Those funds never went to the hospital. The money trail led here. To this property. In an affluent suburb of Colombo. Nimal Perera purchased it with some of the money from Sabre Vision Holdings.
But what really caught the attention of police was that it was soon combined with property immediately next door. It housed the private offices of Namal Rajapaksa -- the then president MR's son.
The question was obvious: Was Nimal Perera AGAIN secretly collecting money for the Rajapaksa family? This time from the hospital contractors? And if so, what was the role of Aspen Medical?
Hello! Hallo!
Nimal Perera agreed to an interview at his house.
Hi : ) How are you? Linton Besser from ABC Australia. 😃
Q1. ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Q2. ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████
██████████████████████████████████████████████████████
██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Q3. Why did Aspen Medical pay you 2 x payments of €687,000 Euros? (Which adds up to €1.4m euros or $2.1m dollars)
Nimal: "To me!? 😕
Q4. (Yes, to you?).
Nimal: "No, Aspen has not paid to me (paid me**)."
Q5. ███████████████
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Q6. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
████████████████████████
Q7. ██████████████████████
██████████████████████████████████████████████
Q8. At the time of those transactions. According to business documents from the British Virgin Islands. There was only one beneficiary of Sabre Vision Holdings. And that was Mr Nimal Perera.
Nimal: "No that is because of by default. Since I became the managing director of that company. I became the beneficial owner."
Mr Perera's explanation to Four Corners differed wildly from what he originally told the police.
Q9. █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
█████████████
Q10. ██████████████████████████
████████████████████████████████████████████
Q11. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
████████████████████████████████████████████
Q12. ██████████████████████████████
██████████████████████████████
Q13. █████████████████████████████████████
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Q14. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████
Q15. The payments that Aspen Medical put into Sabre Vision Holdings?
Nimal: "No, I don't want to answer. So, you can go." 😡
Q16. █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Aspen Medical and pandemic contracts sit between what can be proven, and what cannot responsibly be ignored.
Four Corners reports payments of about €1.4 million from Aspen Medical to Sabre Vision Holdings, a BVI company beneficially owned at the time by Nimal Perera. Investigators said they could find no evidence of services provided in return, and no evidence the funds reached the hospital project.
The best case for Aspen is procedural. Pandemic procurement was fast, messy, cross-border, and often relied on intermediaries. Offshore structures are not proof of illegality, and the reporting does not establish criminal liability or show Aspen knowingly funded political actors.
The best case against Aspen is governance. The record shows inconsistent explanations, documentary contradictions, and a refusal to clearly account for large payments. The funds were also traced to property later linked to politically exposed persons. None of that proves corruption, but it does indicate weak transparency at the exact moment the public most needed it.
Two things can be true: this does not prove wrongdoing in the legal sense, and it still falls short of the accountability standards expected during a crisis. The public interest issue is precedent. Emergencies will happen again. If transparency is treated as optional, trust fails again.
