During a Vancouver forum called “Beware of Scams: a community forum about fraud and cons,” two names were brought up the most: Zeala Cortes and Francisco (Jun) Cortes. Individuals present at the December 2022 forum spoke about their experiences with alleged scams and poor business dealings with the Filipino couple.
Stories shared by alleged victims of the couple range from a proposed Filipino Credit Union to coffee beans to orthotics to an unpaid pig house with heated floors.
Highlights of the community forum can be watched on Simply the Best – The Luisa Marshall Show.
One of the speakers at the forum was Arlene Nicanor.
AUBERGINE/FIRST FILIPINO CREDIT UNION
Arlene Nicanor shares her story about how the husband and wife team, Zeala and Jun Cortes, accompanied by Zeala’s sister, Eula Buan-Stein, came to her house and asked her to invest $700,000 in the development of a Filipino Credit Union. Nicanor obliged, prepared the funds and was appointed treasurer as she sat as one of the Board of Directors of the proposed Credit Union.
Two weeks after the visit, the Cortes’ asked Nicanor to deposit her $700,000 to a company account opened by Zeala’s sister Eula. They told Nicanor that depositing the funds to Zeala’s sister’s account was what their lawyer recommended Nicanor to do. When Nicanor requested a meeting with their lawyer, Zeala Cortes didn’t facilitate Nicanor access to their alleged lawyer and told Nicanor that she now had only 3 days to deposit the money or the deal would be closed.
Nicanor backed out of the proposed Credit Union and didn’t give Zeala and Jun Cortes access to her $700,000. The Cortes’s cut communications with Nicanor and allegedly put her down by calling her a show off, the worst and the poorest.
Arlene Nicanor, MLS Mable Elmore, Vancouver Police Sergeant Chad McRae, VPD
Nicanor says “at least, I have my money.” Others like Pauline Yee weren’t so lucky.
ELAN FOODS CORPORATION BUSINESS
Pauline Yee told her story about how in 2015, herself, Zeala and Jun Cortes and one other individual formed Elan Foods Corporation and put together a business plan to sell coffee beans, chocolates and organic palm sugar. The four of them opened a bank account under Elan Food Co. and they all agreed to invest money into the account.
Yee found herself to be the only person to invest $10,000 into the account and shortly thereafter, the Cortes’s started withdrawing her investment for what Yee says we’re not expenses related to Elan Foods Corporation. Yee says that the Cortes’s transferred $5,041.86 of her $10,000 directly to their own personal bank account. One transaction of $525 was even used to pay off their personal credit card. There was one overseas e-Transfer of $1,683 and the other transactions were deposited into the Cortes’s other business ventures: over $500 to The Filipino Star Magazine and over $2,140 to CNM Communications Inc.
Pauline Yee, Vancouver Police Sergeant Chad McRae, VPD
8 years later and Pauline Yee says Zeala and Jun Cortes have yet to give her $10,000 back.
SPRING FOOT WELLNESS
Lowell and Ester Jordan spoke about their unique experience dealing with Zeala Cortes. They say they were left owing hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lien on their house.
When Lowell and Ester Jordan had two Spring Foot Wellness locations in the BC Lower Mainland, Zeala Cortes approached them and proposed that they hire her to be their business marketer. When the Jordans hired her, they claim Zeala began acting like the owner, to the point that the Jordans felt like she was taking over their entire business. The Jordans allege that Zeala manipulated and bullied them into making bad business decisions and into misusing business funds such as purchasing $50,000 worth of shoes that were inappropriate for their business. They also claim that Zeala canceled their contractor and hired another contractor that cost them over $100,000 more.
Husband and wife Lowell and Ester Jordan
When Zeala was finally out of the picture, the Jordans were left owing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
PIG HOUSE & HOUSE SWAP
Wes and Cherie Reite shared their unusual experience with Zeala and Jun Cortes which included the Reites moving into a house the Cortes’s said they owned and Wes Reite building a pig house for the Cortes’s pet pig.
According to the Reite’s, in the summer of 2022, contractor Wes Reite was asked to build a pig house for Zeala’s pet pig at Zeala’s sister, Eula’s, residence. The cost of the pig house, complete with a porch and heated floors, was around $20,000.
Around August 29, 2022, Wes and his wife Cherie moved into a Port Coquitlam home that they believed the Cortes’s owned. The Reites claim that the Cortes’s told them not to worry about rent because they were owed money for the pig house that Wes built. When the Reites moved in, they found the Port Coquitlam residence to be filthy and the Cortes’ belongings everywhere. Only then did the Cortes’ divulge that they were not the owners of the home. The Cortes’s however assured the Reites that they were best friends with the landlord who was residing in China,
A little over a month later, around October 4, 2022, the Cortes’s contacted the Reites and asked them to vacate the Port Coquitlam home by October 15, 2022. The Reites allege that the Cortes’s were claiming the Reites to be trespassing since they had not paid money for rent – contrary to their initial agreement about the the pig house. The Cortes’s gave the Reites 11 days to find a new home and move out, adding that they were under the protection of the RCMP’s victim services. The Reites refused to leave until they were paid the $20,000 they were owed for the pig house. With the addition of the cleaning expenses they paid for the home and pool which brought the combined total to $25,850.40. The Reites offered to subtract the 2 months of rent that they stayed in the Port Coquitlam home at $3,500 per month out of the combined total they claim the Cortes’ owe them.
Cherie Lactao Reite, Vancouver Police Sergeant Chad McRae, VPD
When the Cortes’ contacted the Port Coquitlam landlord to inform them of the Reites living in the home, the property manager and home owner came to the home and spoke with the Reites. They informed the Reites that they were not best friends with the Cortes’s and that the landlord lived in Coquitlam, contrary to Zeala’s claim that the landlord lived in China. The Property Manager and landlord offered for the Reites to continue to stay in the Port Coquitlam home instead of the Cortes’. The Reites declined however and decided to start fresh in a different home elsewhere.
The Reites allege they still have not been paid for the pig house.
The Cortes’s are also linked to a 2016 U.S. Grand Prize Sweepstakes Lottery Scam investigation that was brought before the Supreme Court of BC and the BC Civil Forfeiture where an upwards of $1.4 million was conned out of victims and never recovered.
Article Link:
- Local Filipino companies hit by Forfeiture Court Actions in BC Supreme Court
- Victims of CNM Communications Inc or Easy Padala Inc. sought by BC Solicitor General
With victims sharing their story, prevention seemingly appears to be key. Once the money is gone, it’s gone.
Today, the Cortes’s are said to be rallying funds for a proposed credit union called Aubergine Credit Union also known as First Filipino Credit Union and in January of this year, the BC Financial Services Authority (BCFSA) said that they are actively investigating the development of the credit union. A space in Henderson Place Mall in Coquitlam, B.C. had been leased, but at this time, Aubergine is not an incorporated credit union and as of date, no application has been put forth to do so.
(This article contains allegations and has yet to be proven in court)
