Construction Company Hit by Alleged Multi-Million Dollar Insider Fraud

Topic: Courts

Wednesday, 24 June 2026, at 8:08 am

The police claim that someone got Shadforth's information without permission and shared it.

In short:

The police in Queensland found a big plan to cheat a construction company on the Sunshine Coast.

This cheating might have caused the company to lose many projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

What's next?

Six men are charged with fraud, and two will go to court on Wednesday.

The police found out that someone was spying on a big construction company, which might have made the company lose many projects.

Two men, Scott Larson and Jesse Martin, are accused of hacking into their old company's files and giving the information to competitors.

These two men used to work for Shadforth, a company that builds homes, offices, and factories in Queensland and New South Wales.

Scott Larson and Jesse Martin will go to court on Wednesday.

Scott Larson started getting into Shadforth's private information in July 2021, while he was still working there.

Someone sent a letter to Shadforth saying that Jesse Martin and Scott Larson were working together to get secret information about the company's projects.

The letter said that they were giving this information to other companies so they could win projects against Shadforth.

The letter claimed that Jesse Martin was giving Shadforth's information to other companies, including Winslow, BMD, and Golding, to help himself and his new company.

It's said that Shadforth's secret information was given to three managers at SEE Civil, a part of the SEE Group.

Millions in tenders lost

Shadforth checked its computers and found that someone had been getting into its private information for a long time.

Scott Larson is accused of cheating Shadforth while he worked there.

The check found that many people had been getting into Shadforth's private files without permission, looking at secret project information.

Scott Larson changed a link in July 2021 so he and others could get into the private files easily.

More than 1,200 documents were downloaded, and 2,000 files were looked at by people outside the company.

Sometimes, competitors would see Shadforth's project information just before they had to send in their own bids, and they would bid a little less than Shadforth.

Jesse Martin allegedly used the information to help his career.

Scott Larson worked at Shadforth for seven years and kept getting into the company's files until May 2025, even after he left the company.

The leaked information was about big projects worth millions of dollars, including projects with Stockland, AVID Property Group, and the Queensland government.

Shadforth might have lost more than 100 projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars because its information was stolen.

The police couldn't prove that the cheating directly caused Shadforth to lose that much money.

Six people charged

The police started investigating in May last year and have charged six people with about 90 crimes.

Scott Larson and Jesse Martin were charged with fraud and computer hacking in June last year.

They will go to court on Wednesday.

Three other men, Finnian Rowe, Sean Ford, and Garran Howell, are also charged and will go to court soon.

These three men are accused of getting secret information from Shadforth and are facing many charges.

Sean Ford and Garran Howell will go to court next month, while Finnian Rowe's case will be mentioned next week.

The three men used to work at SEE Civil but now work together at another construction company in Queensland.

Another man, Jamie Allan Galloway, pleaded guilty to computer hacking and getting secret information and was fined $1,800.

Competitor denies gaining advantage

The CEO of SEE Group, Joel Barnes, said he knows about the serious accusations against his former employees.

He said the alleged actions are very concerning and do not match the values of SEE Group.

When SEE Group found out about the accusations, it did a detailed internal check.

The check found no evidence that SEE Group used any of the stolen information or benefited from it, and that the former employees were acting on their own.

No other current employees or managers at SEE Group have been questioned by the police about these matters.

ABC Sunshine — local news in your inbox

Wednesday, 24 June 2026, at 8:08 am

Wednesday, 24 June 2026, at 9:35 am

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