Individual surety has had plenty of shady dealings. One of the regulars in the field, Robert Joe Hanson, has received cease-and-desist orders for insurance-related violations in at least 10 states in as many years. His latest scrape with the law came last year in Montana, where state regulators accused him of selling bogus surety bonds to Native American contractors under a new alias, Chief Joe Blue Eyes. Created by federal regulations for small contractors as an alternative to more risk-averse corporate sureties, individual sureties are people willing to provide payment and performance bondsguarantees made in exchange for a premium based on a small percentage of the contractto small firms that would otherwise fail to qualify for public-works projects.