Lafitte snobs abound in New Orleans, the nominal descendants of Jean and Pierre Lafitte, the famed 19th century pirates.* Last week the exploits of a new Jean Lafitte enlivened the New Orleans scene. The legend flowered anew when FBI agents walked into the kitchen of the city's posh Plimsoll Club, collared its manager-chef, Jean Pierre Lafitte, and charged him with a $350,000 swindle. The arrest ended a six-year search by federal authorities. But Lafitte—who naturally claims to be descended from his namesake—seemed unwilling to admit that his colorful career was over. "Just when we have everything," he told his wife, "it looks like we'll have to run again." Although Lafitte declined to elaborate, he could be running from either the feds or the mob. Like his predecessor, Lafitte, due to be arraigned in Boston this week, worked for both the law and himself.
Foreign Legion. The modern Lafitte's background is as mysterious as his career. Not even the FBI is sure whether Lafitte is his real name, and its "wanted" flyers merely suggest that he is somewhere between 66 and 74 years old and may have been born in Canada, France or the U.S. Lafitte loyally claims U.S. birth. He says that he was born to the madam of a bawdy house in Louisiana's Cajun country. His mother, he relates, took him to France, abandoned him and left him to be raised by friends. He denies a French police report that he was arrested in 1921 and claims that the authorities picked up a relative whose name he just happened to be using at the time. A matter of record that he does not deny is his enlistment in the French Foreign Legion—and his desertion a few months later.
Lafitte returned to the U.S. in the 1930s. He first came to the attention of the authorities in the early 1940s, when he failed to register for the draft and was sent to Ellis Island to await deportation to France. While there, he saw a chance to ingratiate himself with the law by becoming an informer. He won the confidence of some racketeers who were being held on the island and offered to carry a message to their fellow gangsters in New York. Instead, he carried it to the Government.
From then on, Lafitte, who changed identities as easily as he changed his stylish clothes, led a double life. Although police records show that he was arrested 23 times in 48 years for fraud, confidence schemes and burglary, they also show that he was a valuable undercover man for the Federal Government. He helped trap some of the late Vito Genovese's mafiosi for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He also posed as a buyer for the FBI, luring thieves into selling him stolen paintings and jewelry and then testifying against them in court.