How to Steal a House Without Getting Caught… Until You Get Murdered
How to Steal a House Without Getting Caught… Until You Get Murdered
This isn’t a heist movie. It’s worse. In real life, the villain wore a tailored suit and smiled in your face while he took your entire life savings.
It started with a murder. A man walked into a quiet office in a suburb of Toronto with a shotgun, and he left in a body bag. Two people he had confronted died too. But the bullets weren’t the real story.
The real story is what happened, and why. What drives a hardworking father—a home renovator with two kids—to pick up a hunting rifle and take three lives, including his own? It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t revenge. It was a fraud. Cold, calculated, and legally invisible.
The Investment That Started It All
They borrowed $1.2 million against their paid-off home to invest in something called private lending. They knew the rehab business. They were promised first position on the mortgage. What could go wrong?
The crook never filed the mortgage lien. The man they handed the money to was a professional scam artist with, by all accounts, decades of experience running schemes exactly like this one. A simple deep Google search on his name and his many aliases could have warned them. But they trusted him because he wore a nice suit and said all the right things. Now they’re both dead. It didn’t have to end that way.
Alan Kats and his wife thought they were playing it smart. The house was paid off. The market was booming. A friend told him, “Don’t buy another house and fix it up. You’re working too hard. Be the bank. Lend money. Get 10% returns and enjoy your retirement.”
Enter the wolf in mortgage-broker clothing. Kats and his wife were steered toward a broker who helped them pull nearly $1.4 million out of their home equity and funnel it into a web of private mortgages.
What they didn’t know: the web was spun by the broker’s husband, Arash Missaghi. A career con man whose name never appeared on a single document, yet who controlled everything. He hid behind LLCs, corporations, and shell companies.
The Invisible Puppet Master
Professional con men are smart. They hide their assets. They hide their criminal past. And if a mortgage lien isn’t registered, it doesn’t exist. You just burned $1.3 million into thin air. No security. No recourse. Nothing.
You think they didn’t call the police? They did. They called the FBI. But Alan Kats believed he had signed official mortgage agreements. He hadn’t. He had signed papers that were worthless, because the man never registered them. He thought corporate paperwork protected him. It didn’t. Every shell company was a puppet on Missaghi’s strings. When Kats started asking hard questions, he was introduced to a new man—Ariani. Soft voice. Big promises. Ariani was Missaghi. New name, same lies.
Here’s where it turns ugly. Missaghi used borrowed funds to pay off other debts—sometimes using one victim’s money to seize control of an asset, pay off another victim, force a sale, and pocket the proceeds. He walked away clean, over and over, for twenty years.
The victims were left with nothing. No property. No money. No justice. This is a classic Ponzi scheme dressed in mortgage-banker clothing. Same story, different asset class. Think Bernie Madoff—but houses instead of stocks.
Twenty years. Two dozen scams. Zero convictions. He was investigated. And despite a trail of wrecked lives, court records, court decisions, and financial carnage spanning two decades, Missaghi was never convicted in Canada or any other country.
Why? Because he never put his name on any piece of paper linking the crimes to him. He was an invisible puppet master, using straw men and fake names to do business and drain people’s life savings. Regulators couldn’t touch him. Police couldn’t pin it on him. And the victims were simply told, “Sorry. You should get a lawyer.”
Some got a lawyer. One man got a gun.
Alan Kats did what desperate people sometimes do when they’re backed into a corner with no options, no justice, and no hope. He didn’t just lose an investment. He lost his life savings, his home, his future. He lost faith in the system. He didn’t kill only for revenge—he killed to stop a predator from ruining more families. In the movies, they call that man a hero or a vigilante. In the news, he’s a crazed murderer. The truth, as always, is more complicated than either label. On the day he walked into that building, he left a handwritten note: stop these criminals from destroying people’s lives.
Was he a hero? Was he a murderer? Justice delayed is fraud enabled. I like to shine light on the silent epidemic of real estate fraud, forgery, and con men. Stealing homes from widows and families happens all the time.
What You Can Do to Protect Yourself
Don’t invest in Ponzi schemes. There are thousands of ways to build a retirement fund, and thousands more for someone to steal it from you or your family. The next time you hear the word “opportunity” and it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t trust someone to do the work for you and mail you a check every month. Those deals do exist—but you’d better do your homework.
My name is Bart Baggett. I’m a forensic document examiner and forgery expert, and cases like this one are exactly why I do this work. This wasn’t just about forged paperwork or one bad man. It was about broken legal systems, underfunded agencies, shadow networks, and lives torn apart while the man walked free and drank champagne. If you think white-collar crime is nonviolent, tell that to the children who lost their father. Tell that to the family sleeping in a motel because their life savings vanished with one bad investment. Just one.
For every legitimate private lending opportunity, two more are built on fraud and bad faith. Don’t just protect your home. Protect your family. Protect your legacy.
Handwriting Experts Inc. — Dallas–Fort Worth
539 W. Commerce St #1396, Dallas, TX 75208-1953
Call or text: 214-614-8122
Have a questioned signature or document? Tell us what you have, and we’ll help you see what the evidence actually shows.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did the Toronto real estate fraud work?
Victims were steered into pulling nearly $1.4 million from their paid-off home into private mortgages promising first lien position — but the crook never filed the mortgage lien. Unregistered agreements left no security, no recourse, nothing.
How did the con man avoid conviction for twenty years?
He never put his name on any paper linking the crimes to him — hiding behind LLCs, shell companies, straw men, and aliases. Despite two decades of investigations and wrecked lives, he was never convicted in any country.
What is the warning sign of a private-lending Ponzi scheme?
An “opportunity” that sounds too good to be true — being told to “be the bank,” earn 10% returns, and let someone else do the work. One victim’s money was used to pay off another, Madoff-style, but with houses instead of stocks.
How can you protect yourself from real estate fraud?
Do your homework — a deep search on names and aliases can expose a scammer’s history. Verify that liens are actually registered, and never trust paperwork alone; for every legitimate private lending opportunity, more are built on fraud.
- Published in articles, Forensic Document Examination, News Stories
Q32. The Craziest Cases I’ve Worked as a Forensic Handwriting Expert
The Craziest Cases I’ve Worked as a Forensic Handwriting Expert
Three decades in this field will hand you everything — contested wills, multi-million dollar fraud, the quiet civil disputes nobody televises. But two cases have always stood apart. One put me across a table from a double homicide suspect in a Los Angeles jail. The other swept me into a national media storm around one of the most famous unsolved cases in American history.
Case #1: Across the Table From a Double Homicide Suspect
This was one of my first major criminal cases, about two decades ago. I was working with the District Attorney, and I had to go down to the Los Angeles jail to collect handwriting standards from a man accused of a double homicide.
What made it forensically unusual was the evidence itself — graffiti on the tarp covering the bodies. Investigators wanted to know whether that graffiti could be tied to the suspect. The allegation was that after the killings, he “tagged” the tarp with his gang sign as a warning to rival gangs.
Here’s why that matters forensically. Gang tagging isn’t casual handwriting. In that world, tagging is identity and creative expression. Many gang members develop a distinctive script style that differs from their everyday writing — sometimes on purpose — and that’s an important nuance in any comparison.
What surprised me most was the man himself. People picture jailhouse interactions as hostile. That day, the suspect was cordial and cooperative. He wrote what I asked. And his natural handwriting — separate from the stylized tagging — was some of the most precise, looped, visually striking writing I’ve ever seen.
The tarp graffiti never made it into evidence. Even though I observed similarities, that “tarp testimony” wasn’t ultimately used. The testimony I gave in court related to a letter he wrote while in prison.
People ask whether this work is dangerous. Here’s what I learned from those familiar with gang culture: threats land far more often on judges and attorneys than on expert witnesses — especially when the expert is seen as doing a job, not picking a side.
Case #2: The JonBenét Ramsey Media Whirlwind
The second “craziest” one had nothing to do with sitting across from a suspect. It was about being pulled into the media machine.
When authorities announced they believed they’d identified JonBenét Ramsey’s killer and arrested a suspect in Thailand — John Mark Karr — I ended up doing a rapid run of radio and TV appearances. It turned into a three- to four-day media sprint, including a sit-down with the late Larry King on CNN to discuss the case from a handwriting and document-analysis angle.
One clarification matters here. I was not involved in the original JonBenét Ramsey case. My mentor, Phyllis Mattingly, served as the official police-hired handwriting expert in Colorado. What I knew of that case came through her involvement and the broader forensic discussion around it.
High-profile cases are “interesting” in a different way. The science can become secondary to headlines, speculation, and public pressure.
The Reality Behind Most Forensic Cases
People love the dramatic criminal stories. But the truth is, most documented cases are civil disputes. A lot of them are about money — business conflicts, estate fights, contracts, people suing each other. The kind of work that fills a Tarrant or Dallas County docket far more than a homicide trial does.
They’re real and they’re important, but they wouldn’t always make great TV. That steady work is what keeps the lights on. It’s also why having trained, court-qualified handwriting experts available across the country — and right here in North Texas — matters as much as it does.
Handwriting Experts Inc. — Dallas–Fort Worth
539 W. Commerce St #1396, Dallas, TX 75208-1953
Call or text: 214-614-8122
Have a questioned signature or document? Tell us what you have, and we’ll help you see what the evidence actually shows.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the craziest criminal case a handwriting expert worked?
A double homicide case in Los Angeles about two decades ago, working with the District Attorney. The examiner collected handwriting standards from the suspect in jail because investigators wanted to tie graffiti tagged on the tarp covering the bodies to the suspect’s gang sign.
Why is gang graffiti difficult to compare to normal handwriting?
Gang tagging is not casual handwriting — it is identity and creative expression. Many gang members develop a distinctive script style that differs from their everyday writing, sometimes on purpose, which is an important nuance in any comparison.
Was Bart Baggett involved in the JonBenét Ramsey case?
Not in the original case. His mentor, Phyllis Mattingly, was the official police-hired handwriting expert in Colorado. When suspect John Mark Karr was arrested, Baggett did a three- to four-day media sprint — including CNN’s Larry King — discussing the handwriting and document-analysis angle.
Are most forensic handwriting cases criminal?
No. Most documented cases are civil disputes about money — business conflicts, estate fights, contracts. That steady civil work fills court dockets far more than homicide trials do.
- Published in Forensic Document Examination, News Stories