See if this sounds familiar:

A Frenchman shows up in town, claiming to be a wealthy developer. A multi-millionaire with a proven track record. He sets about convincing the mayor and other local officials that, with the right concessions, he and his partners are prepared to invest millions in private funding to build a theme park centered around -- get this -- an underground aquarium!

The Reporter offices were deluged with calls last week from Montreal newspapers, radio and television stations looking for information on one Gilles Assouline, who has convinced Quebec officials that his dream of an underground aquarium can become a reality there. The French-Canadian journalists simply typed Assouline's name into their computer search engines and came up with numerous articles on the AquaFalls debacle contained in the Reporter's online archive.

Jean Maurice Duddin of Canada's largest French-language newspaper, Le Journal de Montreal, said Assouline downplayed his role in the AquaFalls catastrophe.

"He said that his landlord, Mr. (Harry) Williams backed out of the project, and that's why it was not completed," Duddin told the Reporter.

While the sad AquaFalls story is well known to everyone in Niagara Falls, it was big news in Montreal last week. Duddin and his colleagues were surprised to learn, for example, that Williams and Assouline -- along with Chinese huckster David Ho -- were actually partners in the scheme. They were likewise shocked to learn that the 45-foot-deep pit the size of a football field remains in the heart of the city's tourist district seven years after Assouline, along with then-mayor Jimmy Galie, announced the grandiose project in 1999.

But they were all too familiar with the smooth-talking Frenchman's ability to win the hearts and minds of hare-brained local politicians, eager to believe in something a reasonable person might immediately recognize as a pie-in-the-sky scheme. Here, he managed to convince three different mayors, Galie, Irene Elia and Vince Anello, along with any number of gullible daily newspaper writers, that funding to complete the project had been found at long last and that construction would resume in a week or two.

It was a tough act to keep up for the better part of six years, but Assouline played his part with aplomb. When told that Assouline and his partners were unable to come up with the $40 million they said they needed to finish the project here, Duddin asked a reasonable question.

"If they did not have $40 million to build it there, where will they get $100 million to build it here?" he wondered. Assouline's Montreal proposal calls for the government to turn over Mirabel Airport, a facility closed in 2002 when the decision was made to concentrate all passenger traffic at Montreal's Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport, Duddin said.

In 2004, Aeroports de Montreal, the agency in charge of the facility, let it be known it was seeking alternative uses for the terminal. The agency received eight proposals, according to ADM President James Cherry. Two fell by the wayside and four were rejected. Ultimately, Assouline's proposal was chosen. Other than saying it would cover annual expenses, Cherry would not divulge how much Assouline and his partners would be paying in rent.

In other words, in April 2004, at the same time he was assuring Anello that funding for the Niagara Falls project had finally come through, Assouline was already planning to take his dog-and-pony show to Montreal, where the government was offering a 25-year lease on the airport complex and an adjacent hotel.

Following that closed-door April meeting, Anello said he was "encouraged," and City Administrator Daniel Bristol said they wrapped up with "smiles and handshakes all around." Predictably, the Niagara Gazette proclaimed the AquaFalls project to be "back on track" the next day.

But if Assouline's experience in Niagara Falls is any indication, our neighbors to the north would be well advised to get whatever rent they can in advance. In addition to the eyesore and public health hazard he left at the intersection of Niagara Street and Rainbow Boulevard, Assouline and his partners also left the city holding the bag on $1 million in unpaid taxes, water and sewer bills.

The site and the former Occidental building adjacent to it were picked up for that amount by Buffalo businessman Frank Parlato Jr. in December 2004, although it is believed that Assouline, Ho and Williams still have a stake in the property. Parlato has been working to remediate the problem left to him, and is slowly filling the pit up with fill taken from public works projects throughout the area. Ironically, while city government all but ignored the hole as erosion began undermining adjacent sidewalks, Parlato has been under increasing pressure from City Hall to speed up the reclamation work.

And while Assouline is still telling anyone who'll listen he's a multi-millionaire -- a September 2000 Reporter story revealed his 1999 income to be a paltry $250,000 -- several key elements of his story have changed.

Rather than claiming he had built an underground aquarium in Australia, for example, he now says he's developing three theme parks in China. And instead of being the head of the smallish AquaFalls Plaza LLC, Assouline has now assumed the presidency of something called the I-Parks-Oger Consortium, an international corporation he claims worked on the EuroDisney project.

Duddin and the other Montreal journalists were incredulous when told about our city's woeful experience with Assouline.

"That is unbelievable," Duddin said.

Local Quebec politicians, however, are optimistic.

"You can't be against something like that," said Hubert Meilleur, mayor of Mirabel, the Montreal suburb where the airport is located. "They had to find a project for that site and this one is interesting."

Politicians, it seems, are the same all over, regardless of whether their mother tongue is English or French.