And Moochelle wondered why there were "Food deserts" in urbanland?
Posted on 02/26/2018 5:47:06 PM PST by Mount Athos
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has published a report estimating that 35,891 food retailers around the country engaged in food stamp fraud, illegally “trafficking” more than $1 billion in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits annually over the three-year period from 2012 through 2014.
“Retailer trafficking of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits occurs primarily when SNAP recipients sell their benefits for cash to food retailers, often at a discount,” the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service said in a summary of the report.
“SNAP benefits are permitted for the purchase of eligible food items from authorized food retailers,” said the report. “The sale or exchange of SNAP benefits for anything other than food sold by an authorized SNAP retailer is illegal.”
The report, published in September 2017, looked at food stamp trafficking in 2012, 2013 and 2014, estimating that more than $1 billion in SNAP benefits were “trafficked” annually during that time period and that about 11.8 percent of the 303,522 retail stores authorized to accept SNAP benefits over the period were involved in trafficking.
“An estimated $1.077 billion in SNAP benefits annually were trafficked and thereby diverted from their intended purpose,” said the report.
“Overall, about 1.5 percent of total SNAP benefits were trafficked; and approximately 11.8 percent of all authorized SNAP stores engaged in trafficking,” it said.
Some types of stores were more likely to engage in food stamp trafficking than other types, according to the report.
Publicly owned stories did not traffic in food stamp benefits, the report said.
“As there were no publicly owned stores found to have trafficked, privately owned stories account for 100 percent of all benefit dollars trafficked although they account for only 54.6 percent of all SNAP redemptions,” it said.
Larger stores were less likely to traffic in food stamps than smaller stores and “convenience stores” were the most likely of all to engage in trafficking.
Of the 35,891 food retailers the report estimated engaged in food stamp trafficking, only 30 were categorized as “supermarkets” and only 42 were “large groceries.”
By contrast, 1,700 were medium-sized groceries; 4,850 were small groceries, and 25,954 were “convenience stores.”
While only 0.07 percent of supermarkets engaged in food stamp trafficking, according to the report, 23.32 percent of small groceries did and 19.42 percent of convenience stores.
“Trafficking was most likely to occur in the most urban areas,” the report said.
“The store violation rate rises in accordance with the level of urbanization,” it said. “The most rural areas have the lowest story violation rate of just above 5 percent and the most urban areas have the highest store violation rate of 14.4 percent.”
“Trafficking is defined as buying or selling benefits for cash or consideration other than eligible food, and the penalty is permanent disqualification,” said the report. “Permanent disqualification occurs when a retailer’s authorization to redeem SNAP benefits is revoked.”
A USDA summary of activity in the SNAP program in fiscal 2016 indicated that there were 1,845 retailers permanently disqualified from the program that year.
A breakdown by states showed that the largest number of retailers permanently disqualified from SNAP in fiscal 2016 were in New York (448), the second largest number was in Florida (175), the third largest was in California (133) and the fourth largest was in New Jersey (130).
I certainly hope this crap about bodegas selling SNAP recipients ineligible goods, selling them containers to ship their U.S.-bought goodies back to “my country”, and all other fraud is brought to a screeching halt. I’m sure we lead the world in getting taken advantage of by the world’s do-nothings.
Make them pay it back or go directly to jail. Make fraudster’s stores ineligible to accept SNAP payments.
Bull hockey! I think you should multiply that number by 10 or 100.
“...25,954 were “convenience stores.”......... We know who/what owns most of them!
grrrrr ping,..
And Moochelle wondered why there were "Food deserts" in urbanland?
Should read:”35 thousand retailers and 35 million recipients”
Why the hell does all government fraud, abuse, cheating, embezzlement, etc. have to become GARGANTUAN in size before being found out? Where the hell are the auditors?
I’ll bet if Facebook, Apple, Amazon, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc had $1B of fraud losses, they would know immediately.
Government sucks and is the root cause of all of our problems. Does anybody who works in government give a sh!t about doing their work properly?
“We know who/what owns most of them!”
Is that a whiff of profiling I detect?
Because NRA?
Doing their work properly, LOL, LOL, LOL!!! They DONT HAVE TO they are union!!!!
Feb 24, 2015 - In Los Angeles County, there are over. 2,000 small neighborhood markets and over 600 convenience stores that do business in the region
That was just L.A.County in 2015! To put it bluntly the USDA's estimate, considering it is for the entire USA, is a load of carp!
“Food Deserts”
Having to drive a mile or more to get to a grocery store! The horrors. What a rotten country. We need socialism and we need it now. (/s in case you were wondering)
Our local Safeway is 1.25 miles away. Am I in a “food desert”? The salmon and brown rice I just ate was pretty tasty and I don’t feel very hungry now.
BREITBART REPORTED EARLIER: Among the terror jihadists that travel back and forth through our porous southern border w/ Mexico is a Kuwaiti refugee named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso, Texas, authorities reported.
According to US intelligence, Khabir now provides training to thousands of jihadis – mostly from Syria and Yemen – at a base in near Ciudad Juarez, which is located just across the border from El Paso, Texas.
US authorities found out about this shocker during an investigation of food stamp fraud in a NJ bodega, as they looked into the store's wire-transfers (remittances).
The wire-transfers all seemed to trace back to one or two accounts in Mexico City.
Cooperating with Mexican Authorities, it soon became apparent that the bodega was aiding and abetting terror. Laundered money was wire-transferred from the NJ bodega to terror cells in Mexico.
BREITBART REPORTED EARLIER: Among the terror jihadists that travel back and forth through our porous southern border w/ Mexico is a Kuwaiti refugee named Shaykh Mahmood Omar Khabir, an ISIS operative who lives in the Mexican state of Chihuahua not far from El Paso, Texas, authorities reported.
According to US intelligence, Khabir now provides training to thousands of jihadis – mostly from Syria and Yemen – at a base in near Ciudad Juarez, which is located just across the border from El Paso, Texas.
US authorities found out about this shocker during an investigation of food stamp fraud in a NJ bodega, as they looked into the store's wire-transfers (remittances).
The wire-transfers all seemed to trace back to one or two accounts in Mexico City.
Cooperating with Mexican Authorities, it soon became apparent that the bodega was aiding and abetting terror. Laundered money was wire-transferred from the NJ bodega to terror cells in Mexico.
Kinda makes Trump’s idea of a food box make even more sense.
This is the type of “opportunity” many “immigrants” are
pursuing for their version of the American dream.
Come on, Secretary Sonny! Shut ‘em down!
A senior official for the Islamic State used phony eBay deals to funnel money to an operative living in the US, according to an unsealed FBI affidavit.
The alleged US operative, Maryland-based Mohamed Elshinawy, was charged with attempting to support ISIS in December 2015. Federal agents believed he was selling computer printers on eBay as a front for receiving funds via PayPal from the terrorist organization, the Wall Street Journal reports. The funds allegedly came from Siful Sujan, who was killed in a 2015 drone attack. The $8,700 Elshinawy received from Sujan was allegedly intended to help fund a terrorist attack.
Elshinawy was convicted after investigators reviewed his Western Union and PayPal records. Investigators subpoenaed eBay, which provided Elshinawy’s account and transaction information.
The affidavit shows that $1,200 of the funds came through Elshinawy’s eBay scheme. Federal agents believed that much of the $8,700 Elshinawy received from ISIS through multiple means was used to purchase a laptop, calling cards, a private VPN networks, and a hotspot—all of which were apparently used to communicate with ISIS. Elshinawy told officials he did not plan on using the money for an attack, but rather, wanted to take money from “thieves” and spend it on furniture. But the agent who wrote the affidavit said this was probably a cover story.
A spokesperson for PayPal told Gizmodo it is working with law enforcement on this investigation and that the “company proactively reports any suspicious activities, investing significant time and resources into our vigilant efforts to prevent terrorist activity on the PayPal platform.”
Ebay sent Gizmodo the statement it had given other outlets, saying the company “has zero tolerance for criminal activity on our marketplace and we worked with law enforcement to bring this individual to justice.”
Elshinawy claimed that he was not advised on how he should use the money to stage an attack on US soil, but was given the then-recent Draw Muhammed Contest shooting in Texas as an example.
Update 1:20 pm: Ebay responded to the Wall Street Journal article with this statement:
Ebay fully cooperated with law enforcement. Fox News was very strong in defending Ebay's position and cooperation on TV! [Wall Street Journal 8/11/17]
http://gizmodo.com/the-fbi-says-isis-used-phony-ebay-listings-to-funnel-ca-1797750099
In 1972, Dr. Barton Deloach and Sam Logan published reports at UC Davis and funded by the USDA with statistics showing the fraud. The USDA deep sixed the study.
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