Policy

US Crop Insurance Fraud Cases Total $100 Million

Many in on the act, including those who were supposed to prevent it

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Harry Dean Canady will learn next month whether he'll spend the rest of his life in prison for cheating taxpayers of more than $1 million and threatening to kill the U.S. agents who brought him to justice.

A convicted felon with an alcohol-fueled temper, Canady, 64, pleaded guilty in December to defrauding the federal crop insurance system and is behind bars pending sentencing.

His thieving was just a sliver of the largest fraud in the program's 75-year history, a case that so far has ensnared 41 North Carolina tobacco farmers, insurance agents and claims adjusters whose law breaking cost taxpayers close to $100 million, federal prosecutors say.

(Hat tip to Scott Lincicome)