Bikies, underworld figures and the CFMEU takeover of construction
Powerful construction union boss John Setka has stood down amid a raft of explosive allegations of misconduct facing himself and his union.
A major investigation by The Australian Financial Review, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes has found underworld figures and bikies have infiltrated major Victorian and NSW construction projects, with some securing jobs as CFMEU delegates and secret surveillance exposing the involvement of notorious gangsters in the industry.
Setka resigned late on Friday after being asked to respond to the months-long, multipart investigation that uncovered unprecedented details of senior bikie figures and criminals being parachuted into lucrative union roles, and the problems extending to the Indigenous employment sector.
Many are employed on federal and state government-funded projects, particularly Victoria’s $100 billion-dollar Big Build road and rail infrastructure program. The revelations shine a light on the systemic failure of policing agencies to stop what has become a virtual takeover of a critical part the construction industry, a critical part of the nation’s economy.
In Sydney, union-preferred labour hire companies backed by organised crime continue to be pushed onto major sites by select CFMEU officials, despite years of law enforcement intelligence warning the arrangement is enabling crime to flourish.
In one extraordinary case in Melbourne, a convicted criminal and bikie figure appointed as a CFMEU health and safety official, earning an estimated $250,000 a year on one of Labor’s Big Build projects upgrading the Hurstbridge rail line, used a car assigned to conduct worker safety checks to engage in bikie gang activities.
Anti-bikie detectives only stumbled onto crime figure Joel Leavitt’s Big Build union role when he was shot at the Rebels bikie clubhouse last year, sparking an ongoing Echo taskforce probe, Operation Spitfire, into what police said was suspected ”rivalry” involving “outlaw motorcycle gangs”.
Leavitt used the rail line upgrade vehicle – which like his salary was ultimately funded by the Allan government – to drive himself, bleeding from a gunshot wound, to the Footscray Hospital, after which the car was seized for forensic testing by Operation Spitfire.
The Echo anti-bikie taskforce has asked large state government contractor Acciona to provide details of the vehicle’s movements in the days prior to the shooting. In May, detectives released grainy CCTV of Leavitt being shot at the Rebels clubhouse after he refused to co-operate with the Echo Taskforce.
“Leavitt was put on Labor’s rail job out north by the union. There is meant to be a vote of members… but you’re just told who you use and no one pushes back. He was the union rep on 200 k plus and a car. No one gives a [expletive] cos it’s all paid for by the government at the end of the day,” said an industry insider, who also described “different bikie gangs bluing” on Big Build sites.
Leavitt is not a one-off. Underworld figures who have served as some of Australia’s highest-ranking bikie bosses have been parachuted into union delegate positions, including on publicly funded projects. These include a former Mongols national vice-president and men who have held the post as Hells Angels chapter presidents, along with several bikie gang associates.
Separately, select CFMEU officials have advised building companies to hire bikie-controlled subcontractors, or, to retain underworld standover men, including Hells Angels enforcer Sammy “The Turk” Ercan, to handle industry or union disputes.
Eight veteran CFMEU members or officials told this masthead they were deeply concerned about the underworld infiltration of the union.
“It’s worse than ever before,” said one veteran Victorian CFMEU insider.
This masthead has also obtained private and highly revealing text messages between underworld figure Mick Gatto – who maintains a key place in Melbourne’s construction sector despite having his actions scrutinised at two royal commissions – and union head John Setka.
The leaked texts cast fresh light on the closeness of the pair’s bond, with Gatto telling Setka “I love ya” and each man describing the other as “brother”.
The Victorian construction division of the CFMEU has contributed significant resources and support to the Victorian ALP, where it plays, in particular, an influential role in supporting the government’s mammoth infrastructure agenda. When the father of secretary John Setka died last year, then senior minister Jacinta Allan attended his funeral.
Setka’s influence over the federal party has diminished after he was forced out of the ALP by Anthony Albanese in 2019 over Setka’s leaked comments about anti-domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty. Setka was later convicted of domestic violence offences.
In NSW, accused or convicted criminals are also in plum union posts. Simon Gutierrez, who was jailed for seven months for drug dealing only to be busted again in 2019 with drugs while employed as a union organiser, was recently gifted a union delegate’s job on a joint venture Sydney CBD development funded by the Scentre Group and superannuation giant Cbus.
Despite previously being forced out of the union for his criminal activity, Gutierrez was also recently elevated to the powerful CFMEU NSW branch committee of management, the union’s governing body.
In a statement to its members in April, the CFMEU said “it had every confidence that Simon too will make a strong contribution to the Union in this role”.
Secretary Darren Greenfield has resisted internal pressure to stand aside from his role as union secretary while waiting for 2021 bribery charges to be tested before a jury. When called for comment, Gutierrez hung up.
Australian Federal Police intelligence sighted by this masthead describes how another NSW CFMEU official plotted to blame anti-union politics in the event the union was accused of corruption, while boasting its control of the biggest NSW projects would flourish under the ALP.
CFMEU national secretary Zach Smith said on Friday the union had “zero tolerance for criminality” and had recently adopted what he called “the strongest measures in our union’s history” to prevent it.
“If there is credible evidence of delegates or officials committing crimes, we will report them. If allegations are proven, people will be thrown out,” he said.
However, Smith stressed the CFMEU “unapologetically believes in second chances” and construction was one of the few industries where people with a criminal history could find stable jobs critical to rehabilitation.
“Mistakes in your past do not mean a lifetime disqualification from serving the members of our union,” he said.
“We will never apologise for promoting people who have demonstrated that they have turned their lives around. Cancel culture is not our culture.”
Former police officer Mark Ney 60 Minutes
Former Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Mark Ney, who led the police operation division attached to the Heydon Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, described corruption and criminality in Australia’s construction sector as endemic, unchecked and fuelled by certain union figures.
“There are still people taking advantage of their positions within the union to extort money out of others. There are still high levels of corruption within that union and there are still people who [are] doing the wrong thing by their members and by the community,” he said, without naming any offenders.
Ney, whose most recent job was working for a minister in the Minns Labor government. has never spoken publicly before.
Ney warned the “inappropriate behaviour, extortion and standing over” of “both members within the CFMEU, but also businesses, both small and large” that his investigators uncovered in 2014-15, was continuing at a pace not seen since before the royal commission, “if not worse”.
“I have no problem with people getting a job,” said Ney.
“What I do have concerns about is that they’re getting the jobs for the wrong reasons, because they are part of the gang, they are part of the crew, which is highly problematic because it excludes a whole bunch of other businesses, but for the fact that they don’t have somebody who has got serious connections.”
From jail to a construction empire: The case of Faruk Orman
The problem of gangland infiltration is most pronounced in Victoria, where figures formerly entrenched in the underworld, such as Faruk Orman, are flourishing in the construction sector backed by the CFMEU and gangland players.
Orman, a former up-and-coming Melbourne gangland figure close to underworld identities Mick Gatto and Zorlu “Steve” Kaya, gained infamy in 2007 when he was charged and later convicted over his involvement in a gangland execution. Twelve years later, in 2019, Orman’s conviction was quashed as a result of the Lawyer X scandal and he left jail vowing to sue the state government.
A jury acquitted Gatto of the murder of Andrew Veniaman 20 years ago, finding he acted in self-defence.
But Orman had other means of making money that drew from his deep connections to Gatto and Kaya, self-styled building industry mediators who have spent many years developing close ties with CFMEU officials and building company bosses.
Less than a year after leaving jail, Orman started his first construction company. It would be one of at least nine building industry linked firms he launched or controlled, including several awarded CFMEU-endorsed enterprise bargaining agreements (EBA).
The use of EBAs or collective agreements is a routine feature of the industrial relations system.
But in certain sections of the construction industry, such as labour hire and traffic management, a CFMEU-backed agreement can be extremely difficult to obtain from the union. Securing one paves the way for securing contracts on major union-controlled building sites. On such sites, the CFMEU has the power to keep out companies with non-union agreements or to favour companies it prefers.
Due to state and federal government rules requiring large contractors that win government work to hire Indigenous workers, a company that convinces the CFMEU to give them an Indigenous labour hire or traffic management EBA can similarly prosper.
Documents uncovered during this investigation reveal Orman’s ability to quickly secure multiple CFMEU labour hire agreements enabled him to build his own small construction empire. In one striking case, he sold a company within days of creating it, and just a day after securing it a CFMEU agreement.
Court and company files reveal that 24 hours after one of Orman’s firms, ZK Civil Infrastructure – which appears to be named after his mentor, gangland figure Zorlu “Steve” Kaya – was granted a CFMEU agreement in late September 2022, Orman sold it.
The sale came after Orman had told the Fair Work Commission that ZK Civil needed the CFMEU agreement to ”employ a significant number of Victorian and Indigenous Victorian workers who might otherwise be without employment … on metro Melbourne and regional Victoria civil and infrastructure projects”.
Mark Ney, the former senior federal policeman, said the hasty sale of ZK Civil by Orman raised a suspicion figures linked to the underworld were being granted preferential treatment because of their CFMEU connections.
“Setting up and then selling it straight away, you can’t help but feel a little bit suspicious,” Ney said.
In a statement, one of ZK’s new owners, Cameron Buzzacott said he obtained the firm because he believed a union EBA “would assist the operation of my business interests in Victoria”.
But he insisted he only discovered after taking ownership of the firm that it was once registered by Orman, whom he did not know, and had acted ethically at all times.
Despite ASIC filings showing the sale of all his shares, Orman said he had never received any money for ZK or the EBA, and even maintained an interest in the firm.
“There might have been shares and directorship transfers for various reasons, to get bank loans or whatever it might be to fund it, but the company’s never been sold or out of my control.”
He said “behind the scenes there are other agreements in place, in between various shareholders and directors”.
In profiting from labour hire companies with union backing, Orman appears to have followed the lead of Mick Gatto.
A covert recording of a figure who worked for CFMEU-backed labour hire firm M Group – which has an Indigenous employment arm called Jarrah and has won work on Labor’s Big Build – captures him describing how Gatto had assisted the company, which is partly owned by a family member.
“He’s [Gatto is] trying to push M Group here, M Group there… He never came to the office. It’s all hush-hush,” the former M Group figure said.
Gatto has previously said M Group pays him to take care of its “union issues” but has denied M Group or Jarrah are “Mick Gatto companies”.
On the covert recording, the M Group insider, a veteran industry figure with deep union links, described his broader concerns about the state of the industry.
“Bikies, everyone is coming in. The union is letting them come back in through the back door. [Expletive] get out of jail, yep come over with us.”
Surveillance of the St Vincent’s Hospital redevelopment in the Melbourne CBD captures Orman onsite managing one of his union-backed companies alongside traffic management employees of the Gatto-linked M Group.
Orman also recently posted photos of himself alongside CFMEU officials at a charity event organised by his close relative, who directs one of his businesses.
‘I do love ya’: Gatto and his union mates
Gatto’s connections with the CFMEU have been scrutinised for years. But they came into sharp focus late last year when this investigation uncovered Gatto’s efforts to persuade a developer of a Melbourne inner-city apartment block to pay out a subcontractor who claimed he was owed money.
Never-before-released audio captures Gatto appearing to pressure the developer, telling him he could influence building sites.
“I can stop anyone doing anything, mate,” Gatto says on the recording.
“And I say that respectfully. I don’t want to be a smartie. We can cause you grief. I know you’ve got enough grief in your life already.”
Former senior Victorian police officer Ken Ashworth, who reviewed the recording, described that statement as “a veiled threat that they [Gatto] can interrupt their business.”
Ashworth, who previously spent years investigating Melbourne’s underworld, said he suspected Gatto’s perceived ability to interfere in building projects was via “union muscle”.
In a previous interview, Gatto dismissed suggestions he could halt building projects or had undue union influence.
Text messages, obtained by this investigation, sent after union boss John Setka was accused of domestic violence and harassment in 2019, show Gatto’s deep bond with the union secretary.
In one text to Setka, Gatto wrote: “thanks john [sic] for publicly defending our friendship. I do love ya. Without you the union is gone. Best wishes. Your friend. MG”
A day later, Setka texted Gatto: “thanks brother I really appreciate the support and I’ll never forget it…. F— these prim and proper people have never done it hard in the [sic] whole lives… and should probably look up in the dictionary what mateship means.”
When Setka was charged with domestic violence offences involving his estranged wife, Gatto sent him a selfie and his best wishes.
“Good luck tomorrow champ… Sorry you are going through all this nonsense. If I was you I would reconsider pleading guilty.”
Setka responded: “thanks brother.”
Gatto declined to be interviewed.
Gatto and Orman are not the only underworld figures with CFMEU backing.
Covert surveillance and audio recordings of industry insiders reveal an associate of Orman, violent former Hells Angels boss Sammy “the Turk” Ercan, was recently promoted by select union organisers as a figure who, like Gatto, can be hired by building companies to sort out industrial or bikie disputes.
A fixture in Melbourne’s underworld, Ercan was in 2019 charged with brandishing a pistol and threatening to kneecap an accountant unless he handed over $500,000. He was convicted in June and is now remanded, awaiting sentencing. In one covertly recorded discussion, building industry insiders discuss how certain union organisers were, prior to Ercan’s jailing, encouraging firms to hire Ercan to manage building industry disputes.
Video surveillance captures Ercan and Orman visiting the offices of a Melbourne construction company that a union-linked source said was introduced to the pair by a CFMEU organiser. Ercan and Orman can be seen embracing before walking into the company, which recently obtained a union EBA.
Orman denied that he ever worked with Ercan to mediate a building industry dispute or act on behalf of a building company. “It’s irrelevant if I know him or not,” he said. “I’m not an industrial relations person or any of that sort of nature.”
Subsequent surveillance vision of Ercan also captures him meeting a CFMEU delegate with his own deep underworld links.
‘Little Ty’ and bikie badness
Covert surveillance of Ercan conducted over five consecutive days earlier this year records him meeting CFMEU delegate Tyrone “Little Ty” Bell twice during working hours in the CBD. The purpose of the union delegate’s meeting with Ercan is unclear, but the pair are seen meeting and speaking intensively before embracing.
Bell is not only a union representative. He has held high-ranking roles, including chapter president and national vice-president, in the Mongols outlaw bikie gang, whose members have been jailed for murder, drug trafficking and serious violent offending.
Ashworth said that, as a high-ranking Mongols boss, Bell would have wielded immense influence in the gang.
“What he says, goes,” said Ashworth, noting that police regarded the Mongols as “an organised crime gang”.
Bell has no serious criminal convictions and there is no suggestion he is himself a criminal. But his close association with the Mongols calls into question his fitness to be a union delegate on publicly funded jobs.
Bell insisted, when contacted this week, that when he became a union delegate last year, he stepped away from the Mongols to focus on his work for the CFMEU. Bell dismissed suggestions he was appointed a union delegate because of his reputation as a Mongols boss, stressing he was committed to the health and safety of workers.
“I put my time into the union now,” he said.
He said he was long-time friends with the owners of the Melbourne construction firm that pays for him to work as a full-time union delegate.
“I do my job. I make sure their jobs are safe,” he said.
Documents uncovered by this masthead reveal that in addition to serving as a union representative, Bell’s wife owns small building company Solid Seal, which has several CFMEU EBAs. Bell said repeatedly that the business belonged to his wife and he had no involvement in it.
Documents lodged with the Fair Work Commission reveal that Bell’s wife had signed three EBAs alongside union officials.
One of the witnesses to the EBA is George Sakkidis, another former Mongol who works for Solid Seal.
Bell insisted Sakkidis had also distanced himself from the bikie gang and denied suggestions the CFMEU was pushing delegates and building firms to use Solid Seal, which operates in Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
However, covert recordings of another CFMEU delegate capture him describing how a senior union organiser had pushed him to tell companies they should hire Solid Seal.
On the recording, the union delegate describes Solid Seal as a bikie-linked firm and discusses his displeasure at being requested by a union organiser to replace another small building firm with the Bell-linked firm. The delegate said the CFMEU organiser had told him: “see if you can get ’em [Solid Seal] for line marking. We are just trying to help a bro out.”
Solid Seal has also won contracts for the company Bell works for as a union delegate. Bell denied this involved a conflict of interest or union pressure, saying Solid Seal had worked for his employer long before he joined the company.
Solid Seal has previously subcontracted to bikie-controlled bricklaying firm, Maurer Commercial, which also has a CFMEU EBA, and which is owned by Finks bikie Jesse Bonnici. It is not suggested that Sakkidis and Bonnici have criminal convictions.
Bell described Bonnici and Sam Ercan as close friends, but denied his connection to the pair was related to the building industry and said he did not know that Ercan was a building industry fixer.
Surveillance shows Faruk Orman and Sam Ercan meeting on a Melbourne street. For CFMEU series 60 Minutes
“That’s news to me, mate,” he said.
Bell is not the only CFMEU delegate who has held a top post in a bikie gang. The CFMEU recently parachuted former Hells Angels president Luke Moloney to the role of delegate.
In 2023, Moloney was convicted, with fellow Hells Angels enforcer and chapter president Kane Montebello, over a violent bashing of another bikie. Montebello, a Hells Angels Darkside chapter president whose twin brother is a senior CFMEU organsier, has also been appointed a CFMEU delegate.
Asked this week about whether there was an overlap between his Hells Angels chapter president’s role and his job as union delegate, Montebello swore before hanging up.
Other bikie-linked figures appointed as CFMEU delegates include Johnny “Two Guns” Walker, a former Bandido heavy who was jailed for manslaughter.
This masthead has confirmed that at least three other Victorian union delegates are close associates of the Finks or Rebels.
NSW: The more things change
In 2015, the Heydon royal commission spent weeks exposing how NSW labour hire firms linked to organised crime and the underpayment of workers had been promoted by select NSW CFMEU officials, despite concerns about the practice held by others in the union.
More than seven years later, sources close to the NSW union branch claimed there was fresh concern at the decision of two senior CFMEU figures to favour and protect a controversial labour hire company with ties to organised crime figures and which is winning work on major Minns government projects.
Court and corporate filings reviewed during this investigation show the state branch has also gifted a series of rare labour hire EBAs to a business run by a man with extensive criminal convictions and a history of business dealings with a known underworld identity.
The company has gained a reputation as the “king of phoenixing” among some industry insiders due to its reputation for sourcing labour from companies that collapse without paying taxes.
However, with the backing of the CFMEU, it has won work on major projects, including state and federal-funded civil infrastructure.
Separately, the Heydon royal commission sparked limited reforms and criminal investigations in the construction sector, including one that led to the charging of NSW CFMEU state secretary Darren Greenfield for bribery in 2021.
Greenfield continues to lead the union in NSW while his case is before the courts. This masthead makes no suggestion in relation to Greenfield’s case, who is presumed innocent pending his trial.
But Ney and senior CFMEU insiders have questioned why Greenfield hasn’t stepped down as union boss until his case is finished.
More broadly, the former head of the Purana taskforce on organised crime Ken Ashworth said taxpayers and consumers ended up footing the bill for the problems in the construction industry.
“Because it’s a cancer that spreads, and I’ve seen it spread in my time where there’s no governing body. They’re not being looked at. They flourish in the dark and just keep spreading and spreading,” he said.
“We all pay for it. The costs of building and construction, the taxpayer, the government jobs, it is all paid for by the taxpayer.”
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