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(NEW YORK) — When a man claiming to own a vacant Randolph, New Jersey, investment property called real estate agent Lisa Shaw last summer, she thought it would be the start of another typical real estate transaction in the Garden State suburbs.

“He said he had this piece of property for over 25 years in Randolph, even though he had never been to Randolph,” Shaw told ABC News. 

She said she asked the man why he wanted to put this land on the market.

“He said, ‘Well, real estate is really high right now.’ He thought he could get the best dollar for it,” Shaw said. “He also told me his wife was ill and he needed the proceeds from that money for his wife’s illness.”

Shaw says she did not realize that not only did the man on the phone not actually own the property in question — but that this one phone call would ultimately connect that vacant lot to an alleged international crime web that authorities say involves fake documents ranging from Canada to Vietnam.

The incident is just the latest example of what the FBI says is a growing and troubling new form of fraud affecting unsuspecting landowners nationwide.

“Who would ever think that somebody would sell your own property from right under your nose, without your knowledge, and be able to dupe the system and everyone involved in that transaction?” Jim Dennehy, assistant director in charge of the FBI for New York, told ABC News Chief Business Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis.

‘No one suspected it’

Shaw, who has been selling properties in and around Randolph for more than two decades, says that after she spoke with the purported property owner, she asked him for documentation.

The man said that he and his wife were Canadian citizens living in England, and he provided a British address and copies of what appeared to be their driver’s licenses from the Canadian province of Ontario.

What Shaw didn’t know was that the property in Randolph was actually owned by a husband and wife from Texas. When the driver’s licenses arrived, they had the names of the real owners — just not their Texas address.

“Everything looked fine,” Shaw said, explaining that she proceeded to put the land up for sale and immediately received around 10 offers.

But the licenses turned out not to be fine. An official with Canada’s Peel Regional Police told ABC News that both identification cards were fake.

Although the licenses contained real addresses in the Toronto area, the owner of the home at one of those addresses told ABC News that she has no idea how her address ended up being listed on the fake identification card, and that she had nothing to do with an attempted property sale in New Jersey. The owner of the home at the British address, an attorney, said the same thing — but he suspected that scammers could have found his home address in England because he used to own property in Florida.

Back when the property in Randolph was getting ready to be sold, Shaw says no one involved detected that this was a scam.

“No one suspected it, not the attorneys, not myself, not the title company,” she said.

When the supposed property owner asked Shaw about the offers that had come in, Shaw said she told him that the highest one was for $140,000, and that he told her to immediately accept the offer.

Sale documents were soon prepared and the man provided paperwork that purportedly showed he had gotten the deed notarized at the U.S. embassy in Vietnam.

In December, the deal closed — all while the real property owners had no clue that the transaction had taken place. The supposed seller asked for the $140,000 payment to be split in half and sent to two different banks, according to Shaw.

But the title company encountered trouble while attempting to submit the second $70,000 payment.

“That set off the red flag,” explained Shaw, who said that the title company was then able to get in touch with the son of the real owners. “We knew it was definitely identity fraud.”

But by that point, it was too late. Shaw said that the initial $70,000 payment had already gone through, and the supposed seller had disappeared.

The buyer that paid $70,000 to the fraudulent seller is still listed in municipal and county tax records as the property’s new owner — but since the original owners did not authorize the sale, it remains unclear what will happen to the land now.

“It was a real shock to find out that people were devious [enough] to do this kind of thing,” Shaw said.

‘A lot of litigation’

ABC News has learned that the FBI is now investigating the alleged scammers who fraudulently sold the lot in Randolph — though the owners of the British and Canadian homes that were used as fake addresses said they have not yet been contacted by American law enforcement authorities. The FBI would not confirm or deny details of the investigation.

Dennehy, who was previously FBI Newark’s Special Agent in Charge, is urging owners of vacant land to remain vigilant and check their property records, as the bureau has reported a 500% increase in vacant land fraud over the last four years.

“It all comes down to due diligence on behalf of the buyer, the real estate agent, the title companies and beyond,” Dennehy said, explaining that scam artists pretend to be real landowners by using publicly accessible property information.

Dennehy cited another New Jersey case in which a property owner found out that her land was fraudulently sold when the new owner showed up with construction equipment.

The FBI is encouraging real estate agents and property owners who suspect fraud to contact authorities before money changes hands.

“It’s probably going to be a whole lot of litigation for many, many months and years to come, if that money is already gone,” Dennehy said. “Technically you’re no longer the owner of the property, so now it has to get into civil lawsuits, a lot of lawyers [with] a lot of litigation involved in order to try to reclaim what’s yours to begin with.”

‘Vacant land is very easy to steal’

As a result of these scams, real estate industry groups in parts of the country with large swaths of vacant land are issuing urgent warnings to their members.

“Vacant land is very easy to steal because not everybody is going to be checking up on a vacant piece of property once a month,” Emily Bowden, executive officer of the Sussex County Association of REALTORS in New Jersey, told ABC News. “Not everyone who owns that land necessarily lives in our area.”

Bowden said real estate agents should try to meet with sellers in person whenever possible, make sure that their mailing addresses line up, and assess how well sellers actually know the lay of the land that they are seeking to put on the market.

A desire to sell a vacant lot as quickly as possible can be suspicious, Bowden said, adding that real estate agents who do not do their due diligence when representing fraudulent sellers could face lawsuits.

Derek Doernbach, who sells properties on the Jersey Shore, says he was contacted by three purported sellers who he believes were actually scammers. He said that, as a result of his suspicions, he declined to list any of the three properties.

According to Doernbach, all of the supposed sellers sent him Canadian driver’s licenses containing the exact same picture and address as the license that was presented to Shaw by the alleged scammer in the Randolph case.

“Without a doubt, this has to be the same people, or it’s just a ring on the dark web that is circulating the same driver’s license around,” Doernbach said.

A year after she was first contacted by the alleged Randolph scammer, Shaw says she wants to make sure other real estate agents remain on the lookout.

“If you have a piece of property that someone wants to sell and it’s vacant property, really, really get your feelers up on that one because there could be a potential fraud,” she said. “It’s a very easy way that they’re doing this, and it’s successful. And nobody knows until after the fact.”

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(NEW YORK) — In a letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett revealed that he would be donating more than $1.1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to four of his family’s foundations. In addition, he detailed plans for distributing his wealth after his death.

Buffett, the CEO and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, reflected in the letter released Monday on his life and how long he has lived.

“Father time always wins. But he can be fickle – indeed unfair and even cruel – sometimes ending life at birth or soon thereafter while, at other times, waiting a century or so before paying a visit,” Buffett said. “To date, I’ve been very lucky, but, before long, he will get around to me.”

Buffet, 94, said he and his late wife, Susan Buffett, always expected she would outlive him and be the one to distribute his fortune.

But when Susan died in 2004, with a fortune of $3 billion and 96% of that going to the foundation, she left $10 million to each of their three children.

That was the largest gift they had given them, Buffet said.

Buffett believes that parents should support their children but do so in a meaningful way.

“Our belief that hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing,” Buffett wrote in his letter to shareholders.

Buffett explains that he “never wished to create a dynasty or pursue any plan that extended beyond the children.” He also admits that while he and Susan encouraged the children to get involved in philanthropy, that the children weren’t ready to handle the wealth Berkshire stocks had generated in light of their mother’s death.

Since the 2006 lifetime pledge Buffett made and later expanded, the children have dramatically increased their philanthropic activities, Buffet said. And now Buffett is entrusting them fully.

“The children have now more than justified our hopes and, upon my death, will have full responsibility for gradually distributing all of my Berkshire holdings,” Buffet said. “These now account for 99 1⁄2% of my wealth.”

Buffett has described his wealth and age as “lucky” but he also sees a downside to it, he said.

“There is, however, a downside to my good fortune in avoiding his notice. The expected life span of my children has materially diminished since the 2006 pledge. They are now 71, 69 and 66.”

With his children getting older, the family has also designated three potential successors, Buffett said.

“Each is well known to my children and makes sense to all of us. They are also somewhat younger than my children,” Buffett said.

Buffett also reflects on his “lucky streak” dating back to 1930 when he was born as white male in the United States. He mentions his two sisters being promised by the 19th Amendment to be treated equally with males. And he admits to growing in a country that has not yet fulfilled its promises elsewhere.

“In 1930, however, I emerged in a country that hadn’t yet gotten around to fulfilling its earlier aspirations,” Buffett said. “Aided by Billie Jean King, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and countless others, things began changing in the 1970s.”

Favored by male status, Buffet said he had confidence he would become rich one day. But he never expected it to be the way it is, he said.

“But in no way did I, or anyone else, dream of the fortunes that have become attainable in America during the last few decades,” Buffett said. “Billions became the new millions.”

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(NEW YORK) — In the final weeks of the campaign, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have sought to best each other on the all-important issue of the economy, which many voters rank as their top concern.

Both candidates have made manufacturing a centerpiece of their plans, but their respective approaches feature stark differences.

Harris aims to close corporate tax loopholes and throw government support behind the production of critical goods. By contrast, Trump wants to protect domestic manufacturers with tariffs on foreign products while cutting corporate taxes and easing regulations.

Manufacturing accounts for about 10% of U.S. gross domestic product and an even smaller share of the nation’s jobs. But the sector bears outsized importance since the production of essential goods holds national security implications and many manufacturing workers live in key swing states, experts said.

“There’s a belief that manufacturing is special,” Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who studies trade policy, told ABC News.

Here’s what to know about where Harris and Trump stand on manufacturing, and what experts think of their respective plans:

Trump: Tariffs and corporate tax cuts

On the campaign trail, Trump talks about tariffs more than just about any other policy proposal. The tax on imports makes up a key part of his plan for revitalizing manufacturing, alongside a lower tax burden for companies that he says would boost production and hiring.

Trump has promised a sharp escalation of tariffs enacted during his first term. Trump has proposed tariffs of between 60% and 100% on Chinese goods. A set of far-reaching tariffs would also include a tax as high as 20% on all imported products.

In theory, a tax on imports would give domestic producers a leg up in competition with foreign manufacturers, Christopher Conlon, a professor of economics at New York University who studies trade, told ABC News.

“His plan is based on the idea that foreign competitors are pricing their products too low and what we need to do is erect a wall of tariff barriers around the U.S.,” Conlon told ABC News.

An escalation of tariffs could expand certain areas of U.S. manufacturing vulnerable to foreign competition, which could result in added jobs at companies protected by the policy, experts said.

The economy added manufacturing over the first few years of his presidency, though the pandemic wiped out much of those gains.

Experts cautioned about a spike in input costs and consumer prices that could end up hindering many manufacturers and hammering household budgets. Evidence indicates that the Trump tax cut did not provide a significant boost for the economy, they added.

U.S. manufacturers of sophisticated products like automobiles and advanced medical equipment often import raw materials. A tariff would likely raise costs for those companies and risk making them less competitive on the global market, Conlon said. While adding jobs at some manufacturers, the policy could cause layoffs at others.

“Nobody seems to have shared that wisdom with the Trump campaign,” Conlon said.

A similar cause and effect applies to prices paid by everyday people for imported goods at the grocery or department store. Broad tariffs on foreign goods would likely force importing companies to raise prices and reignite inflation, experts said.

In a statement to ABC News, the Trump campaign said its manufacturing plan would create jobs and cut taxes.

“President Trump is a businessman who built the greatest economy in American history, and certainly doesn’t need economics lessons from a professor who has never created jobs or built anything in his life,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said.

“President Trump successfully imposed tariffs on China in his first term AND cut taxes for hardworking Americans here at home — and he will do it again in his second term. President Trump’s plan will result in millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars returning home from China to America,” the statement added in part.

Harris: Close tax loopholes and provide government support

Harris has proposed a different approach to manufacturing that emphasizes closing tax loopholes for some large corporations and providing government support for high-priority areas within the sector.

The agenda carries over a key part of the strategy undertaken by the Biden administration, which invested billions into manufacturing through a series of measures focused on bolstering key industries.

The Inflation Reduction Act spent hundreds of millions of dollars to boost U.S. production of renewables as the nation pursues ambitious carbon emissions goals and a supply chain less dependent on China. While the CHIPS and Sciences Act infused tens of billions into the production of semiconductors.

“The Biden administration has picked sectors, and in those sectors companies are eligible for assistance,” said Lovely.

Last week, Harris put forward a plan calling for $100 billion investment in manufacturing to further bolster the sector. The policy would prioritize “industries of the future,” such as carbon-efficient steel production and data centers for artificial intelligence, the campaign said in a statement last week.

The Harris campaign said it aims to pay for the investment with a reform of the international tax code that prevents producers from skirting U.S. taxes in a “race to the bottom.”

“The facts are clear: When he was president, Trump lost nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs and created new incentives for companies to ship American jobs to China. Economists warn if Trump takes power again, his policies will crush American manufacturing jobs, send even more jobs to China, and cost middle class families $4,000 a year. This is a fundamental contrast with Vice President Harris, who is leading an American manufacturing boom – creating jobs right here at home and outcompeting China,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement to ABC News.

It remains unclear whether the support for manufacturing provided by the Biden administration has yielded significant gains in output or jobs, experts said.

The measures, however, have elicited a burst of factory construction. Spending on manufacturing-related construction surged from $76.4 billion in January 2021 to $238.2 billion in August 2024, U.S. Census Bureau data showed.

The surge in construction marks a positive signal but the critical test will be whether the plants deliver strong output and well-paying, long-term jobs, said Conlon.

“We haven’t had enough time to see if there’s a real effect or not,” he added. “How many chips are getting built by these plants? We don’t know that yet.”

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