01What Operation Perseus is
Operation Perseus is an investigation by Victoria's Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission into the way builder registrations were assessed. IBAC describes it in its own words as an investigation into "allegations of corrupt conduct involving the former Victorian Building Authority (VBA) and the alleged assessment of builder registrations in exchange for financial benefit".
Between August 2024 and May 2025, IBAC charged 38 people with a total of 369 offences.
Two points of precision are worth making early. The first is that the regulator named in the investigation is the Victorian Building Authority, which since 1 July 2025 has traded as the Building and Plumbing Commission. It is the same legal entity, and IBAC's most recent statement refers to "the former Victorian Building Authority".
The second is that the words "alleged" and "allegations" are IBAC's own. Individual convictions are decided facts. The scheme as a whole, and the position of every person whose matter has not been determined, is not.
The Herald Sun has reported that the Victorian Building Authority referred its own suspicions of bribery to IBAC in June 2023. That date does not appear in any IBAC release, so we attribute it to the reporting rather than treating it as established.
02What has been decided
One conviction carries the number that gives this story its shape.
Philip Caccamo, a former VBA employee, pleaded guilty to accepting bribes of more than $700,000 over four years, to corruptly facilitate the approval of at least 69 builder registrations.
Caccamo was convicted of misconduct in public office and sentenced to 36 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 16 months. IBAC records him as the fourteenth person convicted in the investigation.
A second former VBA employee, Benedetto Sano, was convicted in September 2025. The Commission's enforcement register records the grounds: he "was convicted of an indictable offence involving fraud, dishonesty, drug trafficking or violence" and "is not a fit and proper person to practise as a builder practitioner". Both of his builder registrations were cancelled on 22 December 2025 and he was disqualified from registration in any category or class for three years.
The Herald Sun reported in May 2025 that four men were charged, among them Paul Matei. Separately, the Commission's enforcement register records that on 27 August 2026 Matei's domestic builder registration was immediately suspended because he had been convicted of an indictable offence involving dishonesty. Those are two sourced facts and we set them side by side rather than joining them.
By 1 July 2026 IBAC reported 24 convictions, with sentences including fines between $6,000 and $40,000 and community corrections orders between 125 and 250 hours. Thirteen matters remain before the courts.
This article names the three people whose convictions are recorded on the Commission's own public enforcement register. Everyone else connected to the matter is described by their role. Their matters have not been determined, and nothing in this article should be read as suggesting otherwise.
03How it unfolded
The investigation runs from a referral by the regulator itself to a sentence handed down almost three years later.
- June 2023
The regulator refers its own suspicions
The Herald Sun has reported that the Victorian Building Authority referred suspicions of bribery to IBAC. This date does not appear in any IBAC release. - 7 August 2024
Search warrants, first charges
IBAC conducts searches at a number of premises under warrant. Two VBA employees are charged with criminal offences relating to the assessment of builder registrations in exchange for a financial benefit. - 23 January 2025
A further 28 charged
IBAC announces a further 28 people charged. The six charged in 2024 comprised two VBA employees, two building registration applicants and two other people. - 20 May 2025
A further four charged
IBAC charges four more people, none of them VBA employees, listed for the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 30 May 2025. Charging is complete at 38 people and 369 offences. - September 2025
A second former employee convicted
The Commission's enforcement register records the conviction of Benedetto Sano for misconduct in public office. - 22 December 2025
Sano cancelled, three year disqualification
Both of Sano's builder registrations are cancelled and he is disqualified from registration in any category or class for three years. - 13 March 2026
Caccamo sentenced to three years
Philip Caccamo is sentenced to 36 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 16 months, after pleading guilty to accepting bribes of more than $700,000. IBAC records him as the fourteenth person convicted. - 1 July 2026
24 convicted, 13 still before court
IBAC reports 24 convictions, with fines between $6,000 and $40,000 and community corrections orders between 125 and 250 hours. - 27 August 2026
Matei suspended
The Commission immediately suspends Paul Matei's domestic builder registration on the ground that he was convicted of an indictable offence involving dishonesty. - 28 August 2026
Caccamo suspended, 168 days after sentencing
The Commission immediately suspends Caccamo's two builder registrations under sections 179(1)(g), (h) and (o) of the Building Act 1993.
04What we checked, and what we found
On 4 September 2026 we took every name that has been publicly connected to this matter in IBAC releases or published court reporting, and searched each associated registration individually on the Commission's own practitioner search. We then cross-checked all 949 records of the Compliance and Enforcement Register, pulled the same day.
That is eleven registrations across three groups: the former regulator staff, the men named in court reporting as intermediaries, and the registrants charged in May 2025.
DB-U 11976CB-U 1136CB-U 1590DB-U 9385DB-U 71432DB-U 64033CB-L 100181DB-U 72776DB-U 75367DB-U 74542CB-L 100072DB-U 67339DB-U 73382Three of the eleven appear on the enforcement register. Eight do not.
A homeowner who checked any of those eight would find no record of anything. That is not a criticism of the register. It is a description of what the register is for, and of the distance between what an anti-corruption investigation knows and what a public record shows.
05Why Current is not the answer you think it is
The register reports a status, and it does not say why. The Commission's own definitions give two completely different reasons for the same word.
"Suspended, Reason 1. The practitioner's BPC registration has been suspended for failure to pay their annual fee on the anniversary of their registration."
"Suspended, Reason 2. The practitioner's BPC registration ... has been immediately suspended OR the practitioner's registration was suspended as an outcome of disciplinary action taken by the BPC."
One is an unpaid invoice. The other is a regulator acting against a practitioner. Only the detail page on the Commission's own search carries the reason code and the date the registration was suspended or cancelled.
There is a second trap, and we found it in our own free tool this week.
The Commission's own search is current. Victoria also publishes an open data copy of the register, and that copy is what most third party tools query, including ours. On 4 September we measured the gap. Four registrations the Commission had suspended between 27 August and 1 September still read Current on the copy. A registration cancelled on 6 August still read Suspended, four weeks later. A cancellation from 10 July had come through, and so had every decision older than that.
The delay applies to every change of status, suspension and cancellation alike, and on our measurement it runs to at least four weeks. It matters in one direction: towards telling you that a builder who is not currently authorised is fine. We corrected the wording on our own tool on 4 September, and it now says so on every result it returns.
06What the registers cannot tell you
IBAC says at least 69 registrations were corruptly facilitated by one assessor. We searched all 949 records of the enforcement register for the words Perseus, IBAC, bribe and corrupt. There are none.
The register records that a practitioner was convicted of a dishonesty offence. It does not record which investigation, and it does not record how a registration was obtained. There is no public way to identify the 69, or to know whether any of them are still held.
A charge is not a conviction. Thirteen matters are still before the courts, and a regulator generally cannot cancel a registration because someone has been charged. That protection exists for everyone, including people who are later acquitted. A registration reading Current for a person whose matter has not been heard is not a scandal, and we are not presenting it as one.
The problem is narrower than that, and it is real. The public record does not let a homeowner learn any of this.
07What this means for homeowners
Registration is a floor, not a rating. It tells you a person met an entry requirement. It does not tell you whether the work will be any good, and this investigation is about whether the floor itself held.
- Search the Commission's own register, not a copy of it, at bams.vba.vic.gov.au. Only the detail page carries the date a registration was suspended or cancelled, and the reason.
- Read the reason code. Reason 1 is an unpaid annual fee. Reason 2 is an immediate suspension or a disciplinary outcome.
- Check the enforcement register separately, at bpc.vic.gov.au. It is a different record with a different purpose. It holds individual building records from April 2019 only, and entries drop off five years after they are imposed or cease to have effect.
- Treat any third party tool as a starting point. Anything showing a status, ours included, is reading a periodic copy that can be four weeks or more behind.
- Match on the registration number, not the name. In this matter alone the two registers spell one man's given name two different ways, and three other registered practitioners share his surname.
Our own free builder check tool searches both registers at once and is useful for a first pass, with the limitation described above stated on every result. For the basics of verifying a builder in any state, including the check almost nobody makes, see how to check a builder is registered. If your builder has been suspended while your house is half built, what happens next is a separate question with its own answer.
08Sources
- Former VBA employee sentenced to prison following Operation Perseus
- Commissioner's message, IBAC Insights 48
- A further 28 people charged as part of IBAC's Operation Perseus
- A further four people charged as part of Operation Perseus
- Two people charged during IBAC's Operation Perseus
- Compliance and Enforcement Register
- Register of Building Practitioners, practitioner search
- Find and check a practitioner, including Understanding Registration Status
- Building Practitioner Register, open data release
- Former Victorian Building Authority assessor Philip Caccamo jailed, described as principal engineer of bribery scandal
- [Four men] charged in IBAC bribery investigation into Victorian Building Authority
- Building Act 1993 (Vic), sections 179 and 180
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