Leite was born in Portugal and joined the Marine Corps of the Portuguese Navy, leading him to fight in the colonial wars in Africa.
[2] By the late 1960s, the Portuguese Army had developed serious morale problems as many of the teenage conscripts saw no point to the seemingly endless wars to hold on to Portugal's African colonies, leading to the all-volunteer Marine Corps playing a prominent role in the wars as an elite force committed to upholding Portuguese imperialism in Africa.
[2] There were questions raised about Leite's character during his recruitment screening, but he was allowed to join the Mounties as part of the campaign to make the RCMP more diverse as he was a fluently bilingual immigrant whose first language was neither French nor English.
[2] Leite complained incessantly that he was never making enough money and he constantly talked about returning to Portugal to live his dream of being a high end restaurateur.
[2] Leite charged it was impossible to save enough money on a constable's salary to open up the expensive restaurant he wanted to own, which he felt to be deeply unjust.
[2] The Canadian journalist Yves Lavinge wrote that Leite's behavior should have "raised eyebrows" as he had a most "curious attitude" with his expectations about having a lavish lifestyle that was far beyond the salary of a constable, but it did not.
[2] Barbosa, known to French-Canadians as la marraine du Cartel Cali à Montreal, was a plumb quadragenarian described by those who knew her as homely and "unattractive".
[9] It is possible that Leite received more in the way of bribes prior to March 1991 as the amount of money in his bank account swelled massively over the course of 1990 and the first half of 1991.
[2] In May 1991, Leite was serving as the bodyguard to Douglas Jaworski, a Canadian pilot who worked for the Medellin cartel in the 1980s and who flow in numerous shipments of cocaine.
[8] In April 1991, a shipment of cocaine from Colombia hidden in hammocks worth $410 million arrived at the port of Montreal, which the RCMP was aware of.
[8] Much to the surprise of the RCMP officers watching the warehouse where the cocaine-filled hammocks were stored, no-one arrived to pick it up, which was felt to be very strange given the value of the cocaine.
[8] A newly arrived shipment of cocaine is normally picked up as soon as possible by the intended recipients to avoid theft by other gangsters or being seized by the police.
[8] A police team was awaiting to arrest the West End Gang drug dealers at the warehouse holding the cocaine, but no-one ever arrived to claim the shipment.
[1] Given the value of the cocaine in both cases, it was concluded that someone must have forewarned the underworld, and an internal affairs investigation led by Inspector Yves Roussel was opened on 5 May 1991.
[6] Further adding to the suspicion that someone had warned Leite was the fact that both he and his wife had gone on a major spending spree during their last month in Canada, raking up thousands of dollars on their credit cards, which neither made any effort to pay once the couple fled.
[6] A few days after his flight, Leite's wife, Maria, who worked as a nurse at Montreal's Reddy Memorial Hospital suddenly resigned and also went to Portugal.
[4] Once he arrived in Portugal, Leite faxed a letter of resignation to the RCMP's Montreal office and asked about the details of his policeman's pension, a demand that was regarded as outrageous.
[6] One vehicle that Leite left behind in Montreal was his Mercedes-Benz, which afterwards became the property of Glen Cameron, an important drug dealer with the West End Gang.
[9] Some such as the journalist Robert Knuckle have argued that Barbosa ordered Leithman's murder after learning from Savoie that he was a paid RCMP informer.
[7] The Toronto Star reporter Dale Brazao wrote: "The scandal severely tarnished Canada's national police force, shining a spotlight on the activities of the entire RCMP drug squad in Montreal during the early '90s.
[4] Leite rarely spoke with the locals in Calhandiza, but he was noted for his lifestyle as he bred snails in his vineyard and had a swimming pool in his backyard.
[4] A policeman stated the former owner of the Albufeira condo was a Montreal drug dealer and that: "This was an outright gift to Jorge Leite - no money changed hands".
[9][6] The court gave Leite a three-year suspended sentence, which saved him from doing any prison time and fined him a sum equal to $1,500 Canadian.
[7] Knuckle wrote: "The simple fact in law is that Leite was tried in Portugal, he was found guilty, given a sentence-albeit a ridiculous one-and cannot be tried again for these crimes".