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Feds bust up $100M NC crop insurance fraud ring

By Michael Biesecker
Published March 12, 2013 4:00am ET
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Feds bust up $100M NC crop insurance fraud ring
In this photo taken Friday, March 8, 2013, a tobacco warehouse owned by Roy Johnson Raynor is shown at 1441 S. Church Street in Rocky Mount, N.C. Raynor is one of 41 people who have either pleaded guilty or reached plea agreements after profiting from false insurance claims for losses of tobacco, soybeans, wheat and corn. Prosecutors say bulk tobacco supposedly destroyed by bad weather and pests was secretly sold under false by several brokers in eastern North Carolina, part of a massive crop insurance fraud conspiracy prosecutors say cost the government-backed program $100 million in false claims. Raynor pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiring to make a false statement, making a material false statement and committing mail and wire fraud. He was sentenced to one year in federal prison for brokering $1.4 million in deals for the "hidden" tobacco. (AP Photo/Ted Richardson) | Ted Richardson

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Federal investigators have unraveled a massive scheme among dozens of insurance agents, claims adjusters, brokers and farmers in eastern North Carolina to steal at least $100 million from the government-backed program that insures crops.

Authorities say the ongoing investigation is already the largest such ring uncovered in the country.

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