U.S. court date keeps Bamfield guessing
Jody Paterson
Times Colonist
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
If things had gone as planned, some of Jack Purdy's many properties in Bamfield might have been for sale by now.
The Vancouver stock promoter owes the federal government $4.2 million in back taxes and was supposed to be selling off his holdings in the isolated Vancouver Island village to settle his tax debt.
But two weeks after Purdy and Canada Customs and Revenue Agency reached agreement last summer on the payback, he was arrested in the U.S. on money-laundering charges. And there he remains, the fate of his copious real-estate holdings in Bamfield, Port Alberni and around the world on hold until after his trial in Florida next week.
Along with a villa in Italy, a hotel on the Caribbean island of Anguilla and a $3-million property on Hawaii's Kauai, Purdy owns a big chunk of the commercial infrastructure in Bamfield, a tourism-dependent village of 300 on the Island's west coast. In a spree in the last half of the 1990s, Purdy bought the community's only fuel pump, boat fuelling station and pub, along with a motel, a hotel, several small lodges and the local airstrip.
His purchases raised eyebrows in Bamfield, as did the fact that he often bought businesses only to close them down. His signature property, the Bamfield Inn, has been renovated several times since Purdy bought it five years ago, but has yet to serve a single guest.
Unbeknownst to puzzled Bamfield residents, Purdy also was accumulating a tax debt. Court documents show that Purdy either "forgot" or neglected to pay taxes on 12 of his companies between 1995 and 2000. His personal tax returns for those years also were found wanting.
By the time penalties were factored in, Purdy owed the federal government $4.2 million, due and payable immediately. But aware of the impact that a "fire sale" might have on a tiny town like Bamfield, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency put liens on Purdy's properties to secure the debt and gave him two years to improve and sell off his holdings.
Circumstances have changed dramatically, however. Six months ago, Purdy and five other B.C. men ended up among the 60 Canadians and Americans arrested in a joint FBI-RCMP sting. Purdy is alleged to be one of the key figures in a fictitious deal the FBI set up to launder $1.4 million a month in profits for Colombia's Cali cocaine cartel.
Purdy hasn't been allowed to leave the U.S. and is living in a Miami apartment after posting bail. Should he be found guilty at trial Feb. 18, a fire sale in Bamfield may prove unavoidable, particularly if his properties are deemed proceeds of crime.
Purdy's Bamfield operations manager, Joe Pearson, couldn't be reached for comment. But another Bamfield hotelier says it has been business as usual so far at Purdy's operations.
"The motel's still open. The fuel dock is still open," says Barry Otterson, who owns the Bamfield Lodge. "Nothing's really changed, other than there's a lot of rumour and speculation going around."
Revenue agency spokesman Dan McGrath wouldn't discuss the specifics of Purdy's case. But in broad terms, says McGrath, events such as those that have befallen Purdy "in some respects send us back to the drawing board."
Purdy's old friend Martin Chambers -- a former Oak Bay lawyer who practised here years ago under his mother's maiden name of Hamersley -- has been charged in a "pump-and-dump" stock scheme as part of the same sting. The scheme involved buying worthless stocks to inflate their price in exchange for multimillion-dollar kickbacks.
Purdy and Chambers are known in some circles for their spontaneous $7,000 donation a few years ago to improve fish habitat on Vancouver Island. Others have less savoury memories of Chambers, like the 1981 charge against him for importing cocaine to Vancouver (after three trials, the charges were stayed in 1990).
Denied bail in his most recent troubles, Chambers remains in a Florida jail.
jpaterson@times-colonist.com
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