A Canadian man has been extradited to the U.S. to face trial on charges that he swindled $7 million from the victims of a fraudulent commercial insurance policy scheme, Acting New York Insurance Superintendent Eric R. Dinallo announced.
Ian Stuart-Smith, 56, is now being held in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center pending trial in Manhattan Federal Court. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled in May.
According to Rosalind Thomas, an investigator with the Insurance Department’s Frauds Bureau, Stuart-Smith posed as a New York wholesale insurance broker authorized to sell insurance for various underwriters such as Lloyd’s of London. It is alleged that Stuart-Smith, who used several aliases, sold fraudulent policies to hard-to-insure bars and restaurants, including several on Long Island.
The charges allege that Stuart-Smith operated purported brokerages named Surplus Lines, Inc., Heritage, Inc. and Rupertsland Insurance Intermediaries, Ltd., located in New York and Ontario, Canada.
Earlier this month, a San Francisco man, Richard Peterson, 66, who allegedly had business ties with Stuart-Smith, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and more than $13-million in restitution and forfeitures for insurance fraud.
Source: NYSID
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
Severity Was Up, But Will Falling Claims Volume Impact the Profession? 
Senators Launch Probe Into Demotech’s Ratings in Florida 
Cloudy Future for Bourbon Has Jim Beam Closing Distillery for a Year 
Verisk Pulls Plug on $2.4 Billion AccuLynx Deal After FTC Review Delay 
