A North Carolina man has been arrested in a $2.7 million workers’ compensation insurance scam, according to a news release from Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater. Carl Delmas Fuller, of Wake Forest, N.C., was charged Friday with mail and wire fraud for scamming a Highlands County employment services company with a fake workers’ compensation insurance policy. 

An investigation by the Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Insurance Fraud, found that National Employment Services (NES), located in Avon Park, Fla., believed that it had purchased required workers’ compensation coverage through a North Carolina insurance agent by the name of David Walters, doing business as Southeast Services Incorporated. NES provided proof that it had paid Southeast Services more than $2.7 million in workers’ compensation premiums for which Walters issued multiple certificates of insurance.

Further investigation revealed the company named as the carrier of the policy had no agent by the name of David Walters, no affiliation with an entity by the name of Southeast Services Inc., and never received any type of premium payments from or on behalf of NES.  Bank records revealed that the business address used by Southeast Services was a private mailbox in Myrtle Beach, S.C., owned exclusively by Carl Delmas Fuller.

Employees of the mailbox business and the North Carolina bank, where NES checks made out to Southeast Services were transported and deposited, positively identified Fuller as the sole owner of the Southeast Services mailbox and bank account. Analysis of the checking account determined that no premium payments were made or forwarded to any insurance company and that hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid out directly to Fuller.

The United States Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted in the investigation. If convicted, Fuller faces up to 20 years in prison.