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Mitch Johnson struts across the carpeted room, a PowerPoint presentation looming behind him, a chandelier hanging above.

From the second floor of the Sheraton Hotel near Montreal’s Trudeau airport, Johnson’s warming up to the roughly 30 people attending a free, late-September workshop advertised as teaching people how to buy real estate in the United States and “create instant cash flow.”

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The company hosting the workshop is called At Will Events. The man behind it is Marco Kozlowski. He is nowhere to be seen, but Johnson mentions him every few minutes. It is Kozlowski’s name that has been featured in newspaper ads for the conferences.

“Where is Marco from?” Johnson asks those on hand, to little response. “Where does he live?” he tries again.

“Just down the road,” he ends up saying. “He’s lived here his entire life, he understands real estate in Montreal as good as anyone else. He’s a multimillionaire that made millions in the United States real estate market.”