459 pages of complaints from the Nevada Division of Insurance (NDOI) related to bail bondsman point to epidemic in the state: bounty hunters in a largely unregulated industry are routinely using that vacuum to line their own pockets or abuse their customers.

In the process of continuing our investigation on the world of bail enforcement, we have uncovered the horrifying case of Curtis Maroney, a South Carolina bounty hunter who for years abused his position to extort women for manual labor and sexual favors.

After filing near 50 public records requests tracking regulations that may or may not exist on bail enforcement agents (also commonly called bail recovery agents or bounty hunters), is that the industry is almost entirely devoid of any meaningful oversight. A perfect illustration of this comes to us from North Dakota’s Insurance Department, which helpfully provided a lone audio file concerning a violent struggle by an unlicensed bounty hunter team, and a single complaint written by a woman whose brother had experienced the wrath of an abusive bail agent.