people would rather pay large sums of money than have their life work destroyed by gangsters
have sth done.是“让……被”的意思，这里就是让他们的工作生活被歹徒毁掉，因为sth(their life work)与do(destroy)是被动关系，所以用过去分词destroyed，另外by sb表示“被某人”，也表示这里的被动关系
gave him a state funeral and had a picture painted which was