Francis Alex Degioanni was gunned down Thursday in Phuket, Thailand. (Courtesy of the Degioanni family)

A Canadian property developer died Thursday after being riddled with bullets in his car outside his condominium in Phuket, Thailand.

Francis Alex Degioanni, 34, appeared to have been the victim of a planned hit, freelance reporter Andrew Drummond, speaking from Bangkok, told CBC News.

"He drove out of the condo which he owned on Patong Beach on the island of Phuket and was stopped by two gunmen who shot at his body eight times. Police found wounds to his head, chest, arms. He died before reaching hospital," Drummond said.

Degioanni's family in Quebec said he called home last month to say he had been poisoned and that he blamed a business partner in Thailand.

His girlfriend, Nanthawadee Phenjaroenwatthana, said they were preparing to celebrate his birthday on Thursday when he received a phone call and said he had to go out, the English-language Phuket Gazette reported.

She said that when he got into his car, two men pulled up on a motorbike, opened fire and then fled, the newspaper said on its website.

Police were looking into whether the attack was related to a business dispute or some other motive, such as romantic jealousy, it said.

Selling condos to tourists

Degioanni had been doing business in Phuket for five years, selling condos to foreign tourists, the newspaper said, attributing the information to a police superintendent.

According to police, Degioanni was in conflict with a Thai partner with whom he co-owned a property development business in Phuket, a common arrangement under a law that limits foreign ownership of local companies, Drummond said.

Degioanni had accused the partner of cheating him out of the equivalent of about $750,000 and the matter was before the courts, he said.

Degioanni's father, Mario, lives in Val-des-Monts, Que., in the Gatineau area north of Ottawa.

The father's wife, Charmaine, told the CBC's Amanda Margison that her stepson was engaged in a bitter legal battle with a female business partner, whom he blamed for what he thought was an attempt to poison him.

The family asked him many times in recent years to come home, but he insisted his life was there, she said. He had lived in Thailand for nine years and had a three-year old daughter who remains there, she said.

Other Canadian killings

Two Canadians were shot and killed in Thailand last year.

Calgarian Leo Del Pinto died in Thailand in January 2008 following a confrontation with an off-duty police officer. Del Pinto, 24, died of two gunshot wounds to his face and torso in the northern Thai town of Pai.

In February, a Victoria man died from a gunshot wound to his head at his home in Ranong. Dale Henry, 48, worked for an oil drilling company in Nigeria, but split his time between that country and Thailand.

Henry's wife and two men have been charged in the case.