Shelby County (USA) - This plan was ingenious - but also characterized by criminal energy through and through. The method with which a man from the USA earned his living landed him in prison.

Stuart Breakstone (34) is a different kind of estate agent. The US-American earns his money with real estate. His clients: unsuspecting home buyers.

However, as News Channel 3 reported, Breakstone was not employed by a real estate agency or could call one his own. The 34-year-old took a different approach.

He forged documents from property owners, transferred their houses to the names of uninvolved third parties for a sale price of a mere ten US dollars (the equivalent of around nine euros) and then offered the buildings for sale under their identity.

One property is said to have been a property in East Memphis, another a house in Highland Heights (both in the US state of Tennessee).

According to the report, Breakstone and an accomplice were filmed by a surveillance camera as he tried to have one of "his" houses transferred at an official authority.

A video also showed the pair of crooks withdrawing money from a bank account. It later transpired that Breakstone had previously used a stolen driver's license and a social security card to open the account. The name of the actual owner of the driver's license had also been used to process said house deals.

Shortly before the rip-off "realtor" was arrested, he allegedly sold the house in East Memphis (current value 157,000 US dollars) for a measly 82,000 US dollars. In total, the investigators assume that Breakstone made more than a quarter of a million US dollars with his crooked deals.

The 34-year-old now has to face a judge. He is accused of identity theft, forgery and other offenses.