by Douglas McLeod -
SACRAMENTO, Calif.—The alleged architect of a long-running offshore insurance fraud is awaiting extradition from Canada after his arrest in Toronto on a U.S. warrant leveling conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering charges.
Canadian authorities earlier this month apprehended a man who has used the alias Robert Lewis Brown for a decade to operate the allegedly fraudulent Tri-Continental Exchange Ltd. of St. Vincent & the Grenadines.
Tri-Continental has purported to manage a pool of insurers that included “Nationwide Insurance,” “Globe Indemnity” and others. While Mr. Brown represented these to be U.S.-licensed insurers, they were actually unrelated to legitimate U.S. companies with similar names and were, in fact, shell corporations created in St. Vincent, federal prosecutors in Sacramento, Calif., charge.
Tri-Continental, which wrote commercial auto, trucking and contractor risks, has been hit with cease-and-desist orders by regulators in eight states and the province of Ontario since 1995. The alleged scam has netted at least $20 million, with policyholder premiums collected through a mail drop in Phoenix and wired to bank accounts in Jersey, the Channel Islands; St. Vincent; the Cayman Islands; and Gibraltar, prosecutors allege.
Mr. Brown assumed his alias in 1994, using the Social Security number and birth date of a man named Robert Lewis Brown who died in 2001, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento. Prosecutors say they have not discovered Mr. Brown’s actual identity.
If convicted, Mr. Brown faces maximum sentences of five years on the conspiracy and mail fraud charges against him and 20 years on the money laundering charges.
Mr. Brown could not be reached for comment.
Source: Business Insurance
