An American doctor was astonished to discover that the land he had owned for almost 20 years had been sold’ to property developers by a scammer in South Africa.

Dr. Daniel Kenigsberg had a block of property near to his childhood home in Fairfield, Connecticut. He bought the land in 1991 and became the sole owner after his brother died in 2011.

In 2023, he returned home to discover, to his dismay, that someone had built a million-dollar mansion on his property without his consent.

During his two decades of ownership, the New York doctor turned down multiple offers to acquire the land, which he intended to hand down to future generations of his family.

However, when Dr. Kenigsberg returned to his village in 2023 to meet a close friend, he was surprised to see a four-bedroom mansion worth £1.2 million on his land.

It was discovered that developers Sky Top Partners LLC acquired the site for around $350,000 (£270,000) from someone in South Africa posing as Dr. Kenigsberg, and the landowner was understandably furious.

Kevin Kneupper, a consumer protection lawyer, stated on TikTok that the fraudster had most likely faked his identity and signed it in a ‘power of attorney,’ which is the authority to sign legal documents on someone else’s behalf.

He responded, “It’s pretty easy to find out who owns the land. If you’ve never done any research on this, most counties allow you to simply go; it depends on your state.

“In many places, you just search online; they’ll have databases, so they can easily find the owner and pretend to be him.”

Patch reports that the fraudster registered an address in Johannesburg and created a false passport in his name with an inaccurate birthdate and photo, which appeared to be sufficient to persuade the property developers that they had found the right person.

Dr. Kenigsberg sued the property developers in the summer of 2023, kicking off a nearly year-long legal struggle that ended in April 2024.

Dr. Kenigsberg, who now resides on Long Island, consented to settle, and while the particular details of the settlement have not been made public, it is thought that he got a payment. The Fairfield Police Department first investigated the fraud case but eventually passed it over to the FBI, where it is apparently unresolved.

Although Sky Top Partners had fallen victim to the South African fraud, which most likely cost them thousands of dollars in legal expenses and settlement, they had a happy ending when the property was sold last year for $1.45 million (£1.17 million).