Two men from Gainesville and Suwanee were charged by the Georgia Department of Insurance with allegedly creating false insurance certificates regarding agricultural workers that resulted in estimated losses of $120 million, according to authorities.



Beau Eric Wilson, 34, of Gainesville, and Wesley Bernard Owens, 47, of Suwanee, were arrested Thursday, June 13, in their respective Hall and Gwinnett counties.

According to the Georgia Department of Insurance, Owens is the CEO of the Gwinnett-based Bison Workforce Solutions and Bison Data Systems.

“Owens and Wilson allegedly created fake certificates of insurance claiming large groups of agricultural workers were insured when they were not. The certificates claimed the workers were temporary office staffers. The scheme collapsed when injury claims coming into California were not paid because there was never insurance on the workers to begin with,” according to the Georgia Department of Insurance.

A Stone Mountain woman has 21 outstanding warrants in the case, and a fourth person was arrested in Florida.

Wilson and Owens were charged with six counts of insurance fraud, six counts of ID fraud, two counts of forgery, one count of operating an unlawful insurance business and one count of conspiracy to commit a crime.

Wilson was also charged with 13 counts of felony theft, while Owens only face two counts of felony theft.

The sheriff’s offices in Hall, Gwinnett and DeKalb counties as well as the California Department of Insurance assisted in the case.

Punishment for insurance fraud is a prison sentence from two to 10 years, a maximum fine of $10,000 or both.