ARAB COMPANY NOT ONLY CONCERN AT PORTS; FED ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE MOB

NEW YORK -- Justice Department lawyers warned eight months ago that a
nefarious element had infiltrated important East Coast ports, but they
weren't talking about terrorists or Arab shipping companies.

They were talking about the mafia.

In a civil suit filed in July, prosecutors accused the International
Longshoremen's Association, the 65,000-member union that supplies labor to
ports from Florida to Maine, of being a "vehicle for organized crime" on
the waterfront. Packed with tales of corruption, embezzling and extortion,
the complaint accused union executives of being associates of the Genovese
and Gambino crime families.

The U.S. attorney's office asked a judge to seize control of the union,
remove its officers and "put an end to the conspiracy among union
officials, organized crime figures and others that has plagued some of the
nation's most important ports for decades."

The allegations, assailed by the union as unjust and untrue, are inching
toward trial amid heightened concern over port security.

The recent furor has revolved around the planned purchase of several U.S.
shipping terminal operations by a company based in the United Arab
Emirates. Critics say Dubai Ports World's Middle East ownership makes it
ripe for infiltration by terrorists.

The company moved to defuse the controversy Thursday by pledging to turn
over its American operations to a U.S. company.

But some port security experts say America already has a fifth column, of
sorts, at work on its docks: gangsters who have made the piers friendly
territory for drug smugglers and cargo thieves.

"Do we really think that terrorists aren't going to exploit this
situation?" asked New York Sen. Michael Balboni, chairman of the state
Senate's Homeland Security Committee.

Terrorists could use gangland networks to their advantage, said Joseph
King, a former Customs Service agent and now a professor at the John Jay
College of Criminal Justice.

"It is an invitation to smuggling of all kinds, whether it is heroin, or
weapons, or human trafficking," King said. "Instead of bringing in 50
kilograms of heroin, what would stop them from bringing in five kilograms
of plutonium?"

ILA spokesman James McNamara said any suggestion that the union poses a
security risk is "ludicrous."

"Nobody in America cares more about port security than the longshoremen,"
he said.

The ILA was among the early critics of the DP World deal, calling on the
Bush administration on Feb. 21 to scrutinize the company "to avoid even the
impression of unnecessary risks."

"The union has done a lot, and has lobbied hard, to improve port security,"
said ILA lawyer Howard Goldstein.

In November, ILA assistant general organizer Harold Daggett and vice
president Arthur Coffey were acquitted of rigging a union health care
contract in favor of a mob-favored company. A third official, ILA executive
vice president Albert Cernadas, pleaded guilty to fraud but received probation.