According to Fong’s LinkedIn profile, he currently resides in Hong Kong and works as the managing director for SLS Capital Ltd., an investment firm based in New York. When a reporter repeatedly called SLS Capital, no one answered the phone and no voicemail was available. In response to a list of questions about the condo transaction emailed to Fong, the Star received a letter from Deacons law firm in Hong Kong. “We have evidence to prove that the contents as set out in the email contain serious, untrue and highly defamatory comments about our Client,” the letter stated. When asked to point out specifically what was untrue, the law firm sent a second letter stating “our Client does not wish to correct the inaccuracies.” Fong sold his unit in 2015 for $664,000 less than he paid for it.

Sales of comparable units

Unit 1903

55 Scollard st. Sold on July 30, 2015 $294,948 Gain Unit 1801

55 Scollard st. Sold on Aug 4, 2015 -$103,401 Loss Unit 3704

50 Yorkville Ave. Sold on June 27, 2014 $1,076,877 Gain Unit 3702

50 Yorkville Ave. Sold on July 28, 2014 -$597,457 Loss

When the pre-construction sales for the Four Seasons began in 2007, units at 55 Scollard Street and 50 Yorkville Avenue were priced between $1,350 and $1,500 per square foot — the most expensive condos in Canada at the time. “It redefined Toronto real estate,” said Jimmy Molloy, a Toronto real-estate agent specializing in the luxury market. “All of a sudden, it just dragged everybody up … It just kind of changed the whole landscape of the marketplace.” The 210 exclusive condos are split between the lower-priced “East Tower,” where you can still buy a unit for under $1 million, and the more prestigious “West Tower,” where a unit hasn’t sold for less than $3 million in years. The West Tower condos sit atop a five-star hotel and owners in both towers have access to a French bistro, private yoga classes, a spa that has a reflexologist and a masseuse on call, and a psychic named Cyndi who will “guide you through a highly personal psychic and spiritual exploration.” Condo owners can also book travel aboard the hotel’s private jet.

The condos at the Four Seasons are among the most luxurious in the country. Condo owners have access to numerous amenities, including a French bistro and spa and can also book travel aboard the Four Seasons' private jet. Randy Risling/Toronto Star photo | MLS photos | @fstoronto/Instagram

The list of Four Seasons owners reads like a who’s who of Toronto’s elite, including Leafs’ coach Mike Babcock, Postmedia president Paul Godfrey, Rogers executive Anthony Staffieri, department store heir John Craig Eaton and Seagram’s liquor fortune heir Paul Bronfman. While all of them still own their units, others sold for a loss. These losses could have been prompted by personal situations including rushed sales, divorces or incomplete renovations. There are also tax reasons why someone might want to take a loss on a real-estate transaction. Capital gains tax are due on the sale of a rental property. But if the sale goes for a loss, there are no taxes to pay — instead, you get a tax credit. One agent involved in the tower suggested the losses could be due to the delayed opening of the towers, or because some buyers had difficulty obtaining bank mortgages and turned to higher-cost alternative lenders. Both of these situations may have pushed some pre-construction to sell their units early. “A number of foreign investors decided to sell at the same time,” said Nissan Michael, an agent who specializes in buying and selling in the Four Seasons and markets himself as Mr. Yorkville. “Too much inventory and you’ve got a buyer’s market.” Toronto businessman David Holton Young, 66, inherited unit 205 from his father, who passed away after putting down a pre-construction deposit. Shortly after registering the condo in 2013 for $2.3 million (plus at least $116,283 in tax), Young put it up for sale, where it languished on the market for almost two years before selling at a loss of more than $685,000. “It took a long time and many price reductions to sell,” Young told the Star in an email. “In the hottest property market in the history of the city — to lose about 35 per cent over almost a decade takes some doing!”

Frank Provenzano Ron Bull/Toronto Star Court records show that Frank Provenzano, 56, a former owner of ProGreen Demolition, was accused by two of his brothers of secretly withdrawing $8.5 million from the family company and using it to invest in real estate without their knowledge. One of those investments was unit 202 in the Four Seasons, which was purchased pre-construction for $1.2 million (plus at least $58,585 in tax). Two months after the lawsuit was filed last summer, Provenzano sold the unit for an $80,000 loss. Provenzano did not file a statement of defence and did not respond to multiple requests for comment. His brothers dropped the case in May.

Toshio Masuda chokugen.com Japanese author Toshio Masuda, 80, bought unit 2503 for $4.1 million ($4.3 including tax) in March 2013 via a shell company called Frontier One Canada Investments Ltd. The same day, he and his wife, Mariko Ejiri, took out a $3.2 million mortgage from a Japanese meat packing company with an interest rate of 40 per cent. They sold the unit less than a year later for a loss of more than $375,000. Masuda did not respond to emails or faxes sent requesting comment. Oliver McGinley measuredoutcome.org Oliver McGinley, a 48-year-old greenhouse operator and consultant for non-profits, purchased units 602 and 2402 in pre-construction for a combined $11.3 million (plus at least $566,372 in tax). When he took possession of the units in 2013, he registered private mortgages from cable mogul and family friend David Graham for $16.5 million — nearly 50 per cent more than the units’ purchase price. Reached by telephone, McGinley said the mortgages, which were not fully drawn upon, financed extensive renovations he had done on the units. Despite these enhancements, McGinley wasn’t able to recoup the purchase price he paid, let alone the additional money invested in renovations. “At the end of the day, I paid top of the market price based on a spec in advance. I just paid too much,” he said. “I don’t like losing and losing in a market that’s going up and up, but it is what it is.” McGinley sold the smaller unit last year for a $7,000 profit. He sold the more expensive unit in 2016 for a $680,000 loss. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” said McGinley. “My name was on these things. I couldn’t have been more transparent.” In response to questions about the losses, Four Seasons company president Paul White sent the Star a statement that read in part: “Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is a management company and, as such, we are not responsible for the conduct of sales or resales of residential units.” “We firmly believe that Four Seasons Private Residences Toronto is the best address in the city and we are very proud to serve the community of residents who have chosen Four Seasons as their home.”

Simion Kronenfeld - Unit 3401 Shortly after emerging from bankruptcy, Toronto entrepreneur Simion Kronenfeld, 47, registered more than $3 million in private mortgages to buy a unit in the Four Seasons. He then flipped the condo for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than its purchase price — but says he didn’t lose any money. Born in Russia and raised in Israel, Kronenfeld immigrated to Canada as a teen in 1986. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to possession of counterfeit $100 bills and was fined $2,500. Because of the conviction, he was issued a deportation order in 1995. He returned to Canada the next year and in 2001 founded Electronic Liquidators Inc., a company that made him millions by reselling used electronics. In 2008, he lost much of that money in casinos, becoming one of Las Vegas’ largest debtors ever, with gambling debts topping $18 million. At the same time, his bank, RBC, filed a lawsuit claiming he had opened accounts and obtained credit cards with two different names and social insurance numbers and defrauded the bank by cashing more than $1 million in bad cheques. In his statement of defence, Kronenfeld denied he defrauded RBC and denied using aliases, explaining that “various variations of his name result from the translations from Russian to Hebrew and then to English.” Kronenfeld stated he relinquished his social insurance number when he was deported to Israel and was issued a new one when he returned to Canada.

Simion Kronenfeld purchased Unit 3401 at the Four Seasons. Five months later he sold the unit for nearly $377,000 less than the purchase price. MLS Photos

By the time Kronenfeld filed for bankruptcy in 2010, he was more than $26 million in debt. He received an absolute discharge from bankruptcy in November 2011, staying RBC’s lawsuit and erasing his Canadian debts, but leaving his American ones in place. Fourteen months later, on February 7, 2013, Kronenfeld purchased unit 3401 in the Four Seasons, registering it for $2,997,084 (plus $179,773 in tax). The same day, Kronenfeld took out two mortgages. Public records show Diana’s Management Inc. issued a $1.2 million mortgage. The corporation is registered to Diana Bahrin, Kronenfeld’s wife. Tammy Herzog registered a second mortgage: $2 million with zero per cent interest. Herzog is the daughter of the late developer Sam Herzog, whose company, Lifetime Developments, was one of the two developers of the Four Seasons towers. Bahrin and Herzog did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Only five months after buying it, Kronenfeld sold the unit for $2.8 million, nearly $377,000 less than the purchase price. Kronenfeld’s lawyer, Stanley Rosenfarb, told the Star that Kronenfeld did not lose money on the sale, and actually made $500,000 because he did not pay the deposits on the unit. The pre-construction buyer, Alexander Zeltser, who had paid $952,800 in deposits, could not get a mortgage, Rosenfeld said, and Kronenfeld stepped in. “Mr. Kronenfeld agreed to pay the balance due on closing ... in exchange for title to Suite 3401,” Rosenfarb wrote in an email. According to Rosenfarb, Kronenfeld did not compensate Zeltser for his deposits, paying him a portion of the sales proceeds instead. Rosenfarb also said the $2-million mortgage from Herzog did not have a 0 per cent interest rate because Kronenfeld had pre-paid her $217,000 in interest. In addition, Kronenfeld only borrowed $295,000 from his wife’s company, Rosenfarb said, and not the full $1.2 million that was registered. “There was absolutely nothing inappropriate, improper, surprising or newsworthy about any aspect of Mr. Kronenfeld’s purchase and subsequent sale of the condo,” Rosenfarb wrote. Eight months after the sale, Kronenfeld was indicted by a Nevada grand jury for his gambling debt and 12 separate felonies including theft, obtaining money under false pretenses, and the use of bad cheques. (Nine of the charges were dropped in 2015.) A bench warrant was issued for Kronenfeld’s arrest and remains active today. Lawyer Julian Porter, who was retained by Kronenfeld after he was contacted by the Star, wrote: “There is no public benefit in your smearing Mr. Kronenfeld with his past bankruptcy and criminal charge emanating from Nevada.” Porter sent the Star a report he commissioned from real-estate agent Jamie Erlick, which analyzed four similar sized units in the Four Seasons that had difficulty finding buyers and concluded “during the years 2013/2014 it would have been difficult to get much over $2,600,000 for the 1,956 sq ft unit.” Not included in Erlick’s report was the unit next door to Kronenfeld’s, which sold for $3.2 million in September 2013 — a profit of nearly $150,000.

Sales of comparable units

Unit 3401

50 Yorkville Ave. Sold on July 5, 2013 -$376,857 Loss Unit 3402

50 Yorkville Ave. Sold on September 12, 2013 $141,222 Gain

Porter also provided the Star with a 2016 immigration decision in which a judge denied Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s attempt to deport Kronenfeld. Immigration judge Iris Kohler ruled that Kronenfeld did not intend to defraud the Vegas casinos or write bad cheques, that the casinos knew of his financial situation and he kept them informed of his efforts to repay them. “There is no evidence that Mr. (Kronenfeld) acted with intent,” the judge wrote, stating his actions could not be considered a crime in Nevada or in Canada.

Fifty-one units at the Four Seasons have been purchased or are currently held by private corporations. This makes it difficult or impossible to determine the condos' ownership. Randy Risling/Toronto Star

A lack of transparency in Ontario’s land and corporate registries makes it difficult or even impossible to determine the ownership of 51 units in the Four Seasons, which have been or are currently held by private (that is, not publicly-traded) corporations. Twelve of the 51 corporations are numbered companies, six of which were incorporated a couple of months or mere days before purchasing the unit. Eight of the 30 loss transactions involve private corporations. Anonymity in Canadian real estate can be further bolstered by offshore tax havens, making it doubly difficult for tax officials or law enforcement to trace the origin of funds. Six units are held by companies with addresses in offshore tax havens, such as Delaware, Bermuda, Malta and the Cayman Islands. Unit 4603, for example, was purchased for $4.6 million in cash (plus at least $231,835 in tax) by Pramor Global Financial Corp., a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. Because the BVI allows companies to keep the names of its shareholders and directors private, the people behind Pramor are completely anonymous, unknowable to anyone without a warrant. The unit is still owned by Pramor. Max Motel Cohen, the Toronto lawyer who filed real-estate documents on behalf of Pramor, declined to identify his client. “The purchase of land by well-to-do individuals or holding companies, for cash, is not that unusual,” Cohen said in an email. Unit 206 was purchased by 60 Degrees Group Canada Ltd., a company registered to a mailbox in the Cayman Islands. The only names associated with the company are Barry Cleaver, a London, ON, lawyer, and Mark Joseph Azzopardi, a Maltese banker. The real owner of the unit is unknowable. A year after buying the unit for $875,000 in cash, the anonymous owner took out a $2-million mortgage from another offshore company registered at the same post office box in the Cayman Islands. The Star was unable to reach Azzopardi. Cleaver said the unit was not the only piece of property pledged as security for the mortgage. The unit sold in October for a $115,000 profit.

Alexandre Ventura Nogueira and Alexander Altshoul — Unit 1902 and 1702 Two units in the towers were used to pay off a debt by a pair of businessmen charged with mortgage fraud, one of whom fled justice and remains a fugitive today. Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, a 44-year-old Brazilian, and Alexander Altshoul, a 47-year-old Belorussian-Canadian, were business partners in the late 2000s selling condos in Panama City — including in the Trump Tower — according to a Reuters/NBC investigation published last year. They double sold pre-construction units and deposits disappeared, according to the report. In 2009, Panamanian police charged Ventura Nogueira with fraud and forgery stemming from his work selling condos. Released on $1.4 million (U.S.) in bail, he fled the country and is still at large. Ventura Nogueira did not respond to requests for comment from the Star. In 2007, York Regional Police charged Altshoul with fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. The charges were dropped a year later. While the charge was still outstanding, Toronto lawyer Stanley Ehrlich testified at a hearing at the Law Society of Upper Canada that Altshoul had forced him to participate in fraudulent real-estate transactions between 2001 and 2005. Ehrlich told the panel that when he participated in the frauds, he was “acting under life-threatening duress from which there was no safe avenue of escape.” “His position is that he had fallen into the clutches of what he calls the ‘Russian mafia,’ that he was an innocent victim of their ruthless conduct, and that the same thing could have happened to any other honest Lawyer,” the Law Society’s panel wrote. In 2008, the panel found Ehrlich guilty of participating in the mortgage fraud, writing that he “greatly exaggerated the threats.” Ehrlich was disbarred and had his licence revoked. Altshoul did not respond to requests for comment from the Star. At some point between 2007 and 2009, Ventura Nogueira and Altshoul each put pre-construction deposits down on a unit in the Four Seasons in Toronto.

Alexander Altshoul put down a deposit on Unit 1702. The two-bedroom corner unit has a 20-foot balcony, a kitchen with granite counter tops and floor-to-ceiling windows. MLS Photos

Before the towers were completed, however, Altshoul and Ventura Nogueira were criminally charged in Panama with defrauding a business partner, Joseph Martin Rodin, according to court documents obtained by the Star. In August 2009, they signed over their deposits to Rodin’s wife and daughter as repayment for the debt. But Maria Rodin says she and her step daughter Marcela were cheated by the men, because the deposits weren’t paid in full. “(Ventura) told us he paid the deposit, but in the end, he only paid only half the deposit. He was in arrears,” Maria Rodin told the Star in an interview. The Four Seasons asked the Rodins to pay an outstanding sum of $259,000, according to emails seen by the Star.

Alexandre Ventura Nogueira put down a deposit on Unit 1902 at the Four Seasons during pre-construction sales. The two-bedroom corner unit has 10-foot ceilings, two ensuite baths and floor-to-ceiling windows. MLS Photos