THE CALGARY TYCOON SAVED BY HIS ROLLS-ROYCE.
DEVELOPER HAS BEEN DIVISIVE FIGURE IN CALGARY
When millionaire real estate developer Riaz Mamdani was shot six times outside of his mansion in December, he still had the wherewithal to phone 911. Bleeding heavily and in pain, he spoke with the operator until help arrived — and then walked to the ambulance.
In his first interview since the shooting, Mamdani told Postmedia he was on his way to a weekly board meeting at his Strategic Group on the morning of Dec. 19, 2016, when he was confronted by a gunman, who fled after firing six rounds.
The bullets struck his lower lip, left cheek, left ear, left arm and his chest. Although the shooter appeared to have aimed at his head and heart, where the wounds could have been fatal, he survived.
“I sure feel lucky,” he said, sitting in a boardroom at his company’s downtown offices, the scars on his lip and cheek still visible.
“I remember an awful lot of blood. I remember an awful lot of pain … I was t hinking of keeping my family calm and reassured, and dealing with the issues.”
Mamdani, a father of four, had been behind the wheel of a Rolls- Royce Ghost out- side his sprawling, $ 7.7- million mansion when he was gunned down. The luxury vehicle’s front end was damaged, which suggests he was barricaded by the attacker before he was shot.
A Hyundai Santa Fe was later discovered on fire in an alley nearly two kilometres south of the scene. Mamdani believes it was the getaway car.
Police said they were looking for a male suspect wearing a bright orange jacket in what they called a targeted attack, but have not released any further details since the shooting. All they will say is the investigation remains active.
“They have a task force on this. I have met with them,” Mamdani said. “I have full confidence in their skill set; they’re paying attention to finding what happened and who did it.”
It was a sensational crime pulled from the pages of a Hollywood script: A polarizing real estate tycoon shot by a lone gunman in one of the city’s safest neighbourhoods.
The plot’s central character, a wealthy philanthropist with his name on an opera house, has also amassed a long list of grievances and litigations.
Mamdani arrived in Calgary as a refugee in the 1970s and rose to prominence as a businessman who made millions in dot- coms and became a dominant private landlord of commercial real estate.
But he is a divisive figure in his adoptive home city, where Mayor Naheed Nenshi calls him “incredibly important,” while hundreds of real estate investors accuse him of wrongdoing in an ongoing class-action lawsuit.
While police search for his attacker, Mamdani’s RollsRoyce might have saved his life.
Carlo Galasso, the head dealer at Rolls- Royce Motor Cars Alberta, which had Mamdani’s damaged vehicle in its shop, said the luxury carmaker prides itself on “extreme occupant protection.”
After observing the bullet holes that riddled Mamdani’s car, Galasso said at least some of the rounds appear to have deflected across the glass before they flew into the vehicle’s cabin.
“I’m not a ballistics expert, but you can tell the bullets struggled to penetrate the glass,” he said. “If he was driving any other vehicle in the world, he’d be dead.”
Since the early 1900s, Mount Royal has been an exclusive neighbourhood for some of Calgary’s most affluent residents.
One of the area’s mansions was built by Albert Adrian Dick in 1912 after he and his wife, Vera, survived the sinking of the Titanic while on their honeymoon.
Mamdani and his wife, Zainool, bought the property at auction for $2.2 million in 2000, and told a reporter at the time they were likely buying it with cash.
“We think we got a bargain,” Mamdani, then known as co-founder of the software company Jawz Inc., said at the auction.
The sprawling property is enclosed with a black fence. An electronic security gate, complete with an intercom system and camera, is designed to keep intruders out, while private security guards monitor the grounds.
Despite the relative safety enjoyed by residents of the Mount Royal mansions, Mamdani had hired security years before the shooting. He said the decision was not related to his job, but to protect his wealth and ensure somebody’s home while he travels.
“I don’t think there was any particular threat at all,” he said. “With my lifestyle, having security around made sense.”
Mamdani, who was hospitalized for a week after the shooting, is still doing physiotherapy for his arm.
He said he has no idea who would want to hurt him. “I don’t have a prime suspect. I simply don’t know,” he said.
“I don’t think I have more enemies than other people in business. I don’t think I have enemies I know of that would want to shoot me,” he said.
“I don’t go about my life trying to make enemies.”