When full-patch West Point Hells Angels Ryan Sept wanted work as a longshoreman last year, he needed someone to get him into the union.
That person appears to have been fellow West Point member Larry Amero, who's been sitting in jail in Montreal since November 2012 awaiting trial for his alleged role in an international cocaine smuggling ring.
The Vancouver Sun obtained a copy of the list of applicants for entry into the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 502, which includes the names of their sponsors in the union.
Sept's sponsor is listed as "L. Amero." The Sun has confirmed there is no other Amero in the local with a first name that starts with L.
Amero couldn't sign the form in person because of his predicament.
So Sept had a second sponsor listed beside his name — full-patch Hells Angel and longtime longshoreman Al DeBruyn.
Simon Fraser University criminologist Rob Gordon said it's disturbing that one member of the Hells Angels can sponsor another Hells Angel to work on the waterfront at Port Metro Vancouver.
He said the union and management should be "addressing the question of who's working down there on the docks."
"From the union perspective, I'm sure you would find there is a great deal of cronyism going on — that these jobs pass from one hand to another. And as they do so, individuals who are possibly involved in organized crime are passing the jobs on to their buddies, either directly or indirectly."
In fact, jobs can be passed down like family heirlooms. Amero's dad was a longshoreman.
Gangster Mani Buttar, who is on Local 502's executive, also worked on the docks with his dad and brother Kelly until Kelly was killed in a targeted hit in 2001.
Other union jobs go to cousins, friends or associates, even if they belong to the Hells Angels — a group that the B.C. government has identified as a criminal organization.
Andy Smith, president of the B.C. Maritime Employers Association, said all the workers for longshore jobs are provided by the union, while the BCMEA's job is to ensure they're competent and properly-trained.
"When business requires that we need more longshore guys, we determine what that number is, we tell the Local we need another couple of hundred guys, they come up with them," Smith said. "They then have to get through our screening process. Our screening process is based on their ability to do the job. It is not based on their personal, social, criminal or other kinds of history."
Port Metro Vancouver vice-president Peter Xotta said many want to become longshore workers because the jobs pay well — anywhere from $39 an hour to more than $70 an hour for weekend and night shifts.
"These are good jobs on the waterfront," he said.
But outsiders need not apply.
The two largest ILWU locals in Metro Vancouver are Local 500, which provides workers to Vancouver's two container terminals, and Local 502, whose members work at the other two container terminals, at Deltaport and Surrey-Fraser docks.
Local 500 notes on its website how elusive the lucrative jobs are: "NOTHING is open to the general public. All jobs, training, and apprenticeship information contained on these pages is strictly for registered ACTIVE longshore workers (Members and Casuals,)" the site says.
"New hires are only taken in during a recruitment drive. These drives occur once every few years. We will post information regarding recruitment as it becomes available. Do not phone the office asking when the next recruitment drive will take place."
Local 502 — the one to which both Sept and Amero belong — holds a "draw" to bolster the number of casual workers who can be dispatched to the port when necessary. Each member of the local sponsors a person whose name is entered in the draw to determine the order in which new workers will get shifts.
Sept was lucky enough to get picked 69 out of more than 800 names in the hat. That means he's already getting longshore work.
Both ILWU local 502 and the union's national office have declined repeated interview requests from The Vancouver Sun.
And Sept did not respond to an emailed interview request.
Another man entered in the Local 502 draw last year was Mauro Zuzolo. Someone with the same name was identified in court documents as an unindicted co-conspirator in a United Nations gang plot to kill the Bacon brothers. Zuzolo's name was picked in spot 662, meaning he has not yet been called to work.
Details of the draw remained on Local 502's website for several weeks allowing The Sun to download the information before it was removed.
Sept mentions both his ILWU and HA affiliations on his Facebook page. The main photo on the page is a bumper sticker on a motorcycle that says: "Free Larry."
Senator Colin Kenny, who has studied the criminal problem at Canada's ports for years, said it's too easy for Hells Angels and others linked to organized crime to get work on the waterfront.
"There is not enough of a common approach because it's too easy for folks like Hells Angels to move around (at the ports)," he said. "Montreal is hands down the worst. It's not Hells Angels there, it's Westies. Not only does the union control things there, but they can put people in specific jobs."
The Westies is the nickname for the West End Gang, also known as the Irish Mafia. Several police investigations of drug stashes in shipping containers over the last 20 years have revealed the gang's influence at the Port of Montreal.
