It’s got all the hallmarks of one of those Nigerian spam e-mails. A family fortune sits untouched in a German bank. A lawyer working for the estate just needs someone to come forward to claim it. But the fortune is real — roughly $360,000 — and the person who may stand to inherit it has spent years living in poverty in Vancouver’s grim Downtown Eastside. A Toronto lawyer tasked with finding an heir to the fortune contacted the Vancouver Sun this week in search of Lucia Leiser. The paper had interviewed her in 2007 for a story on increased welfare rates. At the time she dismissed the $50 housing allowance increase, saying “That’s one trick for the women who live down here.” But since that year no one in the neighbourhood has seen her.
General
The search for Lucia Leiser
Women living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside may be in line for $360,000
FILED UNDER: Canada