Crazy Growth, Going to Jail and Generosity with John Lefebvre

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John Lefebvre is a writer, musician, philanthropist, and fan of the Oxford comma. Born in 1951, he has been a taxi driver and lawyer, a convict and 1/3 billionaire. In 2000, he co-founded NETeller.com, an online money transfer business that serviced the online gaming industry. In 2003, NETeller went public on the London Stock Exchange with a market capital of almost $2billion. In 2007 he was arrested by the US Department of Justice which alleged 3 twenty-year offences, money laundering, racketeering and conspiracy. The undisputed facts were that, in the year of arrest, NETeller transferred $14 billion between online gamblers, mostly American, and “offshore” online gambling sites.

He plead guilty to the offence of conspiracy to promote illegal gambling, in 2011 paid a forfeiture of $40,000,000.00 and served 45 days in Manhattan, the same facility in which El Chapo is now held and in which Geoffrey Epstein was surprised to find he had committed suicide.

Between arrest and sentencing he recorded 2 double CDs, one in Village Recorder in West LA, the other in Oceanway Studios in Hollywood. Both were produced by Brian Ahern (Emmylou Harris, John Cash, George Jones, Anne Murray, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt). Players included Jim Keltner drums (Leon Russel, Travelling Willburys, Eric Clapton), Dean Parks guitars (Steely Dan, Michael Jackson), Hutch Hutchinson bass (Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Brown), Greg Leisz guitars (Bill Frisell, Joni Mitchell, Eagles, John Fogerty), Patrick Warren (Tom Waites), Bill Payne (Little Feat) and Matt Rawlings (Lyle Lovett, Mark Knoplfler, Willie Nelson).

Since 2000, Lefebvre has donated/given away well over $50 million. He says that money is like dope – it takes more and more to achieve the same rush, until you just can’t get high on it anymore and, most people, if it runs out, feel deathly ill. He became convinced that eventually the only rush that remained was the ever-increasing thrill of sharing it with others and experiencing their joy at being set free in ways they never imagined would come to them.

He will tell you that the most valuable thing, by far, that has ever befallen him, has fallen into his lap no more than it has fallen into everyone’s. His first book, “All’s Well – Where Thou Art Earth And Why,” starts at that point and becomes a sometimes deadly serious, sometimes gonzo rollick through the history and future of the human species. He maintains that each of us are the Universe’s vessels of consciousness, that this existence that has miraculously befallen each of us is actually the complete answer to anybody’s wildest dreams, and that the way forward for our species to exist in perfect peace and enjoyment needs only one thing – we must take basic care of everyone on Earth, no exceptions, no excuses and no delays.

More recently he was convinced by others to write the story of his life, and, somewhat reluctantly, did so with Vancouver author, music reviewer and journalist, Kerry Gold. “Good With Money – A Rich Guys Guide To Gaining Everything By Losing It All” was published in 2020.

Check out his website https://www.johnlefebvre.com/ and follow him on Linkedin.