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How to Steal a House

When Arash Missaghi was murdered in suburban Toronto last year, his killer accused him of swiping properties and ruining his investors’ lives.

Illustration: Carolina Moscoso for Bloomberg Businessweek

Handguns and assault rifles aren’t easy to get in Canada. So when Alan Kats decided to kill two people, he went to the local Bass Pro shop to examine its selection of hunting firearms. He settled on a Winchester SXP Defender shotgun, designed for speedy pump action between shots, and bought four boxes of ammunition meant to stop large game.

On a warm June afternoon, he found the people he was looking for at a sparsely populated office building in the Toronto suburb of North York. Shepherding both into the building’s marble lobby, he fired a shot to let them know he was serious, then demanded the return of the C$1.28 million ($936,000) he and his wife had given them.