Jean Lafleur's Money Parked in Belize?
By Judi McLeod, canadafreepress.com

Had it not been for his Tico (Costa Rican) neighbours in Costa Rica and the Internet, Adscam shyster Jean Lafleur would still be living the high life, on Canadian tax dollars, in Belize.

Neighbours in the very building where Lafleur had taken up loud residency with boyfriend "Larry", tipped off Canada Free Press (CFP) in November 2005.

Costa Rican citizens came forward the day after the Gomery report was tabled. Frustrated Canadian reporters had found little by way of dramatic tidbits, while Costa Ricans had been waiting for the bombshell thy hoped would rid their land forever of one Jean Lafleur.

Flabbergasted that there didn't seem to be any posse coming anytime soon to San Rafael de Escazú, they had had enough.

"Our personal goal is for him (Lafleur) to move, and to get out tout suite," a neighbour of the then in-exile Lafleur told CFP.

Their complaints did drive the flamboyant Canadian out of their country when Lafleur headed for Belize within a month.

Living high off the hog in the tropics as a notorious 24-7 party boy, Lafleur, in another era, would have given the likes of international playboy Reginald Vanderbilt a run for his money.

Ever since good fortune landed him in San Rafael de Escazu, Monsieur Lafleur and his constant 30-year-old companion "Larry" had been living the life of the wanton playboy with no regard for his neighbours.

Those neighbours waited for authorities to come and retrieve Adscam's main shyster, but it was to take two long years before justice ever caught up to him.

One of the key ad executives at the centre of the Liberal sponsorship scandal, Lafleur was paid more than $15-million in expenses over four years by Canada's Liberal government.

"If I were someone like him, I would be keeping a lower profile," Lafleur's neighbour told CFP. "He is so inebriated, I don't know how he drives his car. I am sure he is trying to drown his `sorrows', but I can tell you that most of the money is here, or in some other Central or South American bank account."

Jean Lafleur Lafleur's neighbours sent CFP a picture of his new dark grey Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, complete with Costa Rican license plates.

In a concerted effort to attract authorities, they took the trouble to obtain a copy from the resistor (licensing bureau) to find out to whom the vehicle was registered.

"In Costa Rica, almost everyone (extarnjeros) who is foreign who has money puts their property (real and personal) in Sociedad Anomimo...or SA corporation. Lafleur's car is in a corporation."

According to his neighbours, Lafleur "apparently owns a finca (ranch) in the Guanacaste area of the Pacific Coast in this country."

A Montreal court heard last week that after ripping off Canadian taxpayers for $1.6 million, Laflleur lived the high life in Belize. During his Belize stint, the ad exec dropped up to $600 a week at a gourmet shop on fine wines, rare cheeses and other goodies, then taking his booty by golf cart to the ocean-view apartment he rented for $1,100 US a month.

Locals admired his seven-metre boat, Virginia of the Sea, with its 200-horsepower engine, which was moored on San Pedro Island in Belize.

With a lifestyle like that, not to mention the $11 million he claimed in income between 1994 and 2005, Lafleur should have to pay back every cent of the $1,568,561.17 he took from the federal government during the (Adscam) sponsorship scandal, Crown prosecutor Ann-Mary Beauchemin said Wednesday.

"We want the judge to take into consideration that Lafleur didn't volunteer to reimburse the government and made his money disappear," she said after sentencing arguments for the 66-year-old father of four." (Edmonton Journal, June, 2007).

"He must have some money somewhere."

"An RCMP investigator rhymed off in detail Lafleur's bank accounts, numbered companies and goods, including paintings, luxury cars and property he liquidated before skipping the country in 2005 for Costa Rica. One house in Sutton, 80 kilometers southeast of Montreal, sold for $1.5 million in 2004.

"Lafleur pleaded guilty in April to 28 of 35 counts of fraud after an international arrest warrant was issued for him and he returned to Canada from Belize, where he had settled after living in Costa Rica.

"Documents filed Wednesday in Quebec Court show Lafleur Communications Marketing declared revenues of $85.8 million between 1994 and 2000."