COTTON PICKIN’ SCAM

Insurance fraud is suspected in a case in Georgia in which someone buried a cotton picker—a machine the size of two garbage trucks. Investigators suspect the picker was buried by a farmer in an effort to defraud his insurance company of $100,000.

The machine was reported stolen in January and Cotton States Insurance paid the claim. But late last month Georgia state agents helped the insurance company dig up the machine near Rochelle. The excavation turned into a 12-hour job that required heavy earth-moving equipment. No charges had been filed at the time of this writing, nor had the suspected farmer’s identity been released.