How do you manufacture a bogus drought? Rainfall is a measurable fact: it rains or it doesn’t. Ten inches fall, or twenty. It’s not open to debate. Or so I thought.

Full disclosure: agriculture fraud is a category that was not really on our radar — until we spotted this fantastic headline in Farm Journal: RAIN ROBBERS: How Four Farmers Faked a Drought and Stole Millions in Crop Insurance. The tagline gets even better: “Dust became dollars in one of the wildest agriculture crimes on record.”

Our guest Chris Bennett wrote that headline — and this buck-wild story, worthy of a full Coen Brothers treatment. His bio says, "Writing from the level land of the Delta just outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi, Bennett has blogged for several years on agriculture, surrounded by cotton and plenty of cottonmouths." We can't do better than that, so we won't try. Listen in to hear an incredible scam story from high-plains farm country, told by a guy who's been called "the best storyteller in agriculture."

"Rain Robbers" in Farm Journal: https://www.agweb.com/news/business/rain-robbers-how-four-farmers-faked-drought-and-stole-millions-crop-insurance

Chris Bennett's archive: https://www.agweb.com/authors/chris-bennett

Host: Hal Humphreys

Guest: Chris Bennett

Sponsored by: TLOxp®

Music provided by Jason White, who composed our theme.

Special thanks to Kim Green, who produced this episode.

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Pursuit Magazine and PI Education are part of StoryboardEMP, a media and education company in Nashville, TN. Pursuit, a free online magazine for private investigators, explores all things investigative, from gumshoe techniques and surveillance tech to industry news and crime in media. PI Education, its sister brand, provides online continuing education for licensed PIs. Pursuit and PIed are owned and edited by husband-wife team Hal Humphreys, a PI, and Kim Green, a writer and radio producer.

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