The Montreal longshoremen’s union is threatening to sue two police forces unless they retract allegations that its members have ties to organized crime.
The Syndicat des Debardeurs du Port de Montreal fired off letters to the Montreal Urban Community police and the RCMP - via the federal justice minister - demanding they cease making “irresponsible allegations” about its members and retract statements already made.
The union’s complaints are based on comments made by police after two recent seizures of drugs brought through the port.
After seizing five tonnes of hashish at the port on Oct.19, MUC police said they were certain the drugs were tied to the West End Gang, a collection of mostly anglophone criminals based in western Montreal.
Police also said that during their eight-month investigation, they monitored a ring of 10 port employees who were stealing goods from the port and helped facilitate the entry of drugs.
After making a seizure on Nov.3 of 1,000 kilograms of hashish from Belgium, hidden in a container loaded with boxes of 5-kilogram bricks of chocolate, RCMP investigators said it had become evident that people with ties to organized crime groups like the Hells Angels were working at the port.
Union president Michel Murray said he was particularly upset by a recent estimate by an RCMP spokesman that 15 per cent of union members have criminal records.
“Enough is enough,” Murray said. “We are not drug dealers.
“We’ve seen of lot of things happen. Our members go to a restaurant or to the arena with their kids while wearing their longshoreman’s jacket and people say ’Hey, that’s one of them. ’ ”
Murray said no members of the union have been arrested as a result of the recent seizures. But MUC police said as recently as last week that they were still investigating the Oct.21 hashish seizure and that arrests could be coming soon.
A general report on organized crime published in 1999 by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada said: “Criminal organizations are entrenched within the infrastructure of Canada’s maritime ports (including Montreal), a position they use to control the bulk of contraband entering through the ports.
“The criminal infiltration of a port is usually accomplished through the placement of members, associates, relatives and friends in legitimate positions at the port. It is often accompanied by intimidation of regular port workers to ensure either co-operation or silence.”
Murray also said that no union members have been arrested inside the port since 1996 - but he later acknowledged that a Montreal longshoremen was one of six people implicated in a 1999 RCMP seizure of almost 1,000 kilograms of hashish, found in a truck in a South Shore town. The $16-million shipment originated in Kenya and arrived in Toronto on a Lufthansa flight.
Murray said that while the case involved a union member “the crime occurred outside of the port.”
