A longshoreman from the port of Montreal who plays a key role in loading containers was the right-hand man of Hells Angel Marvin Casper Ouimet between 2007 and 2008. Dismissed while he was the subject of a police investigation, he was rehired after pleading guilty to charges of gangsterism, money laundering and conspiracy to import cocaine, has learned The Press.
Yves Lafontaine, a solid fellow who was also a member in good standing of the defunct Rockers, the school club of the Hells Angels involved in the bloody biker wars, is today a gantry crane operator. These immense devices, which move containers between ships and port docks, are driven only by the longest-serving longshoremen.
Despite a report from the Department of Public Safety, which noted in 2011 the infiltration of organized crime into Canadian ports and the “potential corruption of port employees, [y compris] the longshoremen”, Mr. Lafontaine holds this job without holding a “transportation security clearance”. This document, obtained after a criminal background investigation by the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), specifically excludes any person who “is or was a member of a criminal organization”, according to federal regulations in in force since 2004.
Only a “Restricted Area 1 Port Pass” is required to move around the docks, but it does not give access to more strictly controlled areas. The fact that certain workers can circulate in ports with these more permissive passes was described as an “obvious flaw” by the Senate Standing Committee on Security and Defense in 2007 in a report on maritime security.
“I can never be a boss, nor an auditor, nor work for the mooring companies. I don’t have access to the rooms where the bosses work,” said Mr. Lafontaine, who agreed to speak to The Press for the sake of transparency.
Even if he recognizes that his past is tumultuous, he swears to no longer have anything to do with the underworld. “I lost everything when that happened, those stories. I completely started from scratch, I work, and I managed to rebuild my life and a banking name,” says the 58-year-old man, very close to retirement.
His realization came in prison, he says, while he was serving a two-and-a-half year sentence for the crimes of which he was convicted.
When your 7-8 year old child comes to see you indoors for a visit during the holidays, and he’s as white as a sheet and he’s scared, it makes you think. I decided to change my life completely.
Yves Lafontaine
Fired, then rehired
Like all the other longshoremen at the time, Yves Lafontaine was hired at the end of the 1990s by the reference list of the Longshoremen’s Union, the only possible entry point at that time. However, he quickly went on sick leave, after only eight months of work.
While maintaining his employment connection with the port, he opened restaurants, bars and a land subdivision business, without returning to his job for years.
Police documents allege that between 2007 and April 2008, he was part of a criminal organization led by Marvin Casper Ouimet, a member in good standing of the Hells Angels who was released from a 14-year sentence on April 13. last September, under severe conditions. The group had attempted to infiltrate the legal construction economy by taking control of the masonry company LM Sauvé. According to police documents filed as evidence, Mr. Lafontaine was the man on the ground who “controlled the territory [au] benefit of the Hells Angels” in this case.
PRESS ARCHIVES
Marvin Casper Ouimet
In April 2008, the Association of Maritime Employers (AEM) fired him, under the pretext that he did not show up for a meeting with his superiors. The Longshore Union immediately filed a grievance.
Five months later, Mr. Lafontaine was handcuffed. He pleaded guilty to gangsterism and money laundering as part of the Diligence investigation, and to conspiracy to import cocaine by land into the Outaouais.
Then, in September 2010, while he was waiting to find out the length of his prison sentence, Yves Lafontaine was rehired as a longshoreman. The president of the Longshoremen’s Union at the time, Daniel Tremblay, and the president of the AEM, Jean Bédard, signed a grievance settlement which canceled his dismissal and reinstated him on “leave without pay” without loss of seniority. Mr. Lafontaine was thus able to maintain his job during his incarceration.
The AEM did not want to comment on the rehiring of Mr. Lafontaine or the reasons which led to this decision, contenting itself with saying that the agreement is confidential.
The Longshoremen’s Union vigorously defends the decision.
In 2010, the president of the AEM and the president of the union bet that this guy could get his act together, and they were right to do so.
Union advisor Michel Murray
Mr. Murray emphasizes that Mr. Lafontaine’s crimes have nothing to do with port operations and argues that it is in any case impossible for longshoremen to play a role in clandestine operations involving containers. “The guys don’t know what’s in the boxes,” he says. Trucks cannot come and go as they please. The port is a very controlled place,” he insists.
Corruption, intimidation and “silent cells”
Many reports dealing with crime in the Port of Montreal claim the opposite.
Organized crime manages to create “silent cells”, notably thanks to union placement, which can be “activated” at crucial moments, relates criminologist Anna Sergi, in an investigative report on crime in the ports of Montreal and of New York, published in 2020 in theInternational Journal of Law, Crime and Justice. “It’s very common, in many ports,” she assures.
Corrupt port employees may move containers “in such a way as to intentionally avoid” inspections at the docks, says a report published in 2011 by the Ministry of Public Security, based on interviews with police authorities.
“Containers have already been suspended over vehicles during an inspection, only to be “accidentally” dropped near inspectors – a stark warning that their lives are in danger,” wrote the Senate Standing Committee on security and defense, in a report which examined the issue in 2002.
The Longshoremen’s Union maintains that it is rather other types of port jobs that are generally at issue during police raids at the port. “I don’t remember a single longshoreman who has been accused, in recent years, of trafficking or complicity with criminal groups in connection with his work on the docks,” insists Michel Murray.
Yves Lafontaine assures that there is no risk of him being caught in this type of plot.
“I left that world,” swears the longshoreman.
“Anyway, with the past I have, I’m probably being watched. At the port, there are 5,000 cameras, the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec, customs who are present… we are surrounded by police all week long,” he emphasizes.
The risks of “bribery”
In 2013 and 2014, two workers at the port of Montreal who had close ties to people accused of a plot to import 43 tonnes of hashish lost their security clearance, necessary to access critical port facilities. They got them back after lengthy legal challenges.
Brenda Forget, a Montreal port controller who lost her access in 2014, is the sister of Brian Forget, a man with a serious criminal past associated with the West Gang who received five years in prison for the conspiracy to importation of drugs.
She had been listed as a “person of interest” in RCMP reports since 2005. Her residence had previously been searched on suspicion of having “fabricated documents necessary” to steal goods.
“There are reasonable grounds to suspect that you may be in a position where you are likely to be bribed into committing an act […] which could pose a risk to the security of maritime transport,” explained Transport Canada in its decision announcing the suspension of his authorization.
The decision was, however, overturned by the Federal Court, which concluded that it was made “without discernible facts”, exclusively on the basis that “Mme Forget has a brother who has a long criminal record.”
Lynn Teresa Neale, a port office worker responsible for drafting trucking documents allowing containers in and out of the port, also lost her security clearance in 2013, after her partner was arrested in the same operation targeting a conspiracy to import hashish.
Mme Neale had guaranteed the release of her husband, and had welcomed him into her home while awaiting his trial. Citing “concerns about her judgment and reliability,” an assistant deputy minister of Transport Canada ruled that Ms.me Neale was “in a position at risk of being suborned” to commit a criminal act.
M’s lawyersme Neale argued that the Department made her “guilty by association” and violated the sacred principle of the presumption of innocence, but the Court did not rule in her favor.
In 2018, the spouse of Mme Neale was completely exonerated, and the worker eventually won her case in arbitration and was able to regain her security clearance.
In 2020, the Federal Court nevertheless considered that the exceptional powers granted to the Minister of Transport, which allow him to cancel security clearance on the basis of simple suspicion, are necessary, “particularly against security risks coming from the “internal”, such as corruption, internal subversive elements and psychological manipulation of port personnel”.