Companies with links to the DoM have been used in insurance fraud schemes. In Texas in 1996, after pleading guilty to insurance fraud, Jeffrey Reynolds was sentenced to 52 months in prison and ordered to repay $475,802 in premiums he had collected for bogus insurance policies. The companies he was using had been licensed in the DoM. Later in the same year, and also in Texas, Leon Hooten's New Zealand-registered companies were prevented from selling insurance when they were found to be capitalised with worthless assets issued by the DoM.