Federal investigators have uncovered the largest crop insurance fraud ring in the country in eastern North Carolina. The scheme involves dozens of agents, claims adjusters, brokers and farmers, who have stolen an estimated $100 million, the AP reported.
Forty-one defendants have either pleaded guilty or reached a plea agreement between 2005 and 2010. False insurance claims for tobacco, soybean, wheat and corn losses were filed by farmers using aliases. In cases where crops were not damaged at all, farmers profited directly from sales of written-off harvests.
Authorities discovered the ring in 2005 after using computer software to mine insurance claims data across the country. Investigators found an outlier in Robert Carl Stokes, a Wilson, W. Va., crop insurance agent whose clients seemed to have consistent bad luck.
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