A Phoenix insurance agent was sentenced to three and one-half years in prison and seven years of probation after selling fake insurance policies to commercial environmental businesses. The agent must also pay full restitution to the businesses he defrauded, restitution totally over $450,000. The agent was arrested by the Arizona Department of Insurance DOI Fraud Unit, in conjunction with the New Jersey Department of Insurance, for fraud schemes, identity theft, and theft. The agent had forged his name onto the insurance producer's license of an Arizona agent who shared his last name. He used that stolen identity and license and began selling insurance with an established insurance company. In 2013 the insurance company executed a merge with the Insurance Office of America. When the Insurance Office of America executed a background check, the forgery was discovered and the discrepancy was immediately disclosed to the DOI Fraud Unit. The Fraud Unit found that the agent had set up fraudulent bank accounts under the initial insurance company's name without that agency's name, and diverted over $450,000 of premium payments into his personal bank account. Over the course of his scheme, eighty-seven different commercial environmental companies across the country unknowingly went without insurance. Last month the agent pleaded guilty to Fraudulent Schemes and Artifices and Theft.