What I'm thinking about: How a fraudster walked into a U.S. embassy in the Middle East with fake documents…and walked out with notarized closing papers for our Gulf-front FL deal.

We were literally an hour away from wiring $350K for a luxury infill lot when the title company pulled the plug on insuring the property.

When a “Perfect” Deal Started Showing Cracks: The SIN Problem

Let me paint you a picture:

Even in this tricky market (and our general aversion to infill lots), the deal looked stellar. Conservatively worth $700K (likely closer to $800K), under contract for $350K.

The seller was Canadian and had owned the property since picking it up from a bank for $220K during the 2009 crash (it had previously sold for $1.6M in 2006, and that seller immediately defaulted). Story checked out with having financial troubles, and I personally reviewed every line of the seller call transcripts.

The property had been listed twice within the past 3 years (but for only a few days each time. Unusual, but we are used to loose cannon motivated sellers).

Understanding the FIRPTA Withholding Tax Requirements

The price we were getting was solid, but not “too good to be true,” and there was some hair on the property, such as burrowing owl nests that would have to be addressed, and an old seawall that would need to be replaced for around $40K. Everything aligned.

The seller seemed to (legitimately) work on oil rigs off the EU coast or in the Middle East. He wanted to complete the closing via remote online notarization (RON), but that is only allowed within the US and Canada.

We arranged a 2-day window for closing, when he would be back in Canada, to handle it remotely before flying to Dubai for 2 months.

Closing was scheduled for a Friday afternoon, but as (frequently) happens, the RON start time was significantly delayed until 7:30 p.m. ET, obviously after business hours, and no title company support. The seller was noticeably irritated, and I couldn't blame him.

We followed up the next day, and the RON could not be completed. His ID was verified, but because he didn't have his SIN on hand (the Canadian equivalent of an SSN), the notary couldn't proceed.

This was a red flag, but not a deal killer. The seller claimed multiple citizenships, and upon further research, an SIN is not granted to every Canadian citizen and primarily serves a tax purpose rather than an ID purpose. The fact that he couldn't get any support on a late Friday evening was also a mitigating factor.

The land investor who brought us this deal had a scanned copy of the seller's passport, which appeared legit, and they had run it through an anti-fraud check. Plus, this land investor is one of the larger ones in the industry, has encountered scams before, and has checks in place.

There was healthy skepticism, but things continued to check out, including the seller having a legit Canadian cellphone instead of a VOIP number typical of most scammers.

Either way, the Canadian time zone he was in had passed by, and we would have to work through a US embassy in Dubai to get the notarization done.

The seller confirmed an appointment at the embassy. In the meantime, we confirmed with the title that we could still close without the seller having a SIN or a US TIN (for FIRPTA purposes).

Again, we all viewed this as unusual, but if the seller was trying to skirt by on tax requirements, that wasn't our problem.

(We also had a history of having closed a foreign seller FIRPTA deal in the past with a seller that didn't have a TIN, and there were no repercussions from the IRS…and mind you, that was when the government wasn't shut down, with half the workers furloughed.)

Given that Florida deeds require two witnesses, the seller needed to bring those individuals to the embassy.

We were skeptical of his ability to deliver, but he kept his appointment and sent back scanned copies of all the documents. Everything seemed legit, the title company gave preliminary approval, and we planned to fund the deal and close 2 days later when the originals arrived via DHL.

Notably, the seller requested that funds be distributed across three bank accounts in Dubai in installments, but again, this was plausible because we weren't familiar with how each financial institution operates, particularly internationally. And we routinely see limits on domestic wire transfers, especially outbound.

The unraveling happened on funding day.

The Identical Photos No One Noticed: How AI Caught What Humans Missed

The title company wanted to confirm the wire instructions as the final step before closing. The seller provided a U.S. domestic account in someone else's name.

The title company flagged this and requested an explanation from the seller. The seller said they were a joint account owner with that “relative” and recommended setting up the account to make it more convenient than the multiple installments of the Dubai accounts.

I called the title co. VP at that point, asking that since we had come this far, check into the Dubai accounts, and if legit, let's close, even if they charge more wire fees to the seller for the installments.

The title company went back to reviewing, then shortly after, sent a PDF notice saying, “We cannot insure this transaction. We are unable to provide any further details.”

Nevertheless, even though they can't typically share details about these decisions (liability concerns), I called them and pushed for info, given how deep we were.

They were cagey, but said the bank accounts did not check out, and said, “We are very confident this is not the true seller. Multiple flags throughout, and we cannot risk insuring this. The seller's package was also suspect; take another look at those IDs.”

I'm staring at the documents. They look legitimate. Passed my threshold. Passed everyone's threshold.

He couldn't share more details, but: “Really pay attention to the IDs.”

(Here's the passport and driver's license – names and addresses redacted. Take 30 seconds. Notice anything off?)

So, I threw them into a sophisticated ChatGPT anti-fraud prompt, and the AI flagged about ten different issues we had all missed.

The most glaringly obvious one…

The driver's license photo and passport photo are identical.

(If you caught that right away, kudos to you!)

That never happens. Ever. Different photos, different angles, different times. But if you're not specifically looking for it? Your brain just doesn't register it.

And once you do see it, it's like a slap in the face.

Other red flags the AI caught:

• Passport prefix discontinued before his claimed issuance date
• Signature overlays off by ~5-7 millimeters
• Multiple formatting inconsistencies are only visible with forensic-level analysis

How a Fraudster Walked Into a US Embassy With Fake IDs – And Succeeded

Once the reality of this near-miss started to settle in, I had to sit back, frankly in awe of the level of sophistication of this scam.

Think about it:

He did have a base of operations in Canada. He targeted a true owner of a Florida property with whom he shared a similar background, and it was a near-perfect ‘motivated seller' scenario.

(Open question: The previous listing history of the property, was it the scammer, or the real owner?)

He passed the initial ID requirements for an RON (including a passport scan), outside of the SIN… which implies he was able to answer the ID verification q's like “What color is your [model/year] car?” or “What address did you live at?”

And most astonishingly, he walked into a U.S. embassy in the Middle East (?!) with fake identification, and two witnesses (were they in on it or did they think he was legit?). And he successfully got his documents notarized!

Think about the nerve required to pull that off.

If you get caught impersonating someone with fraudulent documents in the Middle East, I don't even want to think about what happens next.

Sweating bullets, holy cow…

(Makes me wonder if he passed through airport security with the same fake docs.)

And he almost walked away with $350K.

Almost.

Fraud Prevention Protocol: AI-Powered ID Verification Before Due Diligence

We're now requiring seller IDs upfront and running them through sophisticated AI anti-fraud prompts before investing any DD resources.

Here's the custom GPT that we built: [Access the Fraud Detection GPT here]

Will that catch everything? No. But it would have caught this guy immediately.

Note: Florida is the biggest fraud state in the country, and international sellers require extra scrutiny. But even with domestic deals, run the IDs through AI before you go deep.

(After uncovering another fraudulent sale attempt recently, we are also skip tracing every single seller, in addition to reviewing their IDs, so we can detect if there are any red flags associated with their methods of communication. Fraud risk is higher for cold call, text, or PPC leads.)

The title company ultimately saved us because they face the most liability. If they'd insured this, and the real owner filed a title claim? We'd have to return any profits from the sale of the property. They'd have to unwind the entire title chain and refund our initial payment to purchase the property.

Absolute nightmare scenario that could haunt us even years down the road.

Credit to them for catching it when we were all ready to close.

Reality check: We dodged a bullet and learned a valuable lesson.

Next time? We'll catch it at the ID verification stage…not on the day of funding.

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Looking for funding from operators who learn from near-disasters? Serious Land Capital now runs AI fraud detection on every seller ID before investing significant DD resources. $50K minimum purchase price. Very liquid and ready to move at a moment's notice.

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Originally published on https://seriousland.capital/newsletter/ on October 20, 2025