Free Republic

According to a new report produced by the Government and Accountability Office (GAO), at least $1 billion in food stamp benefits are "trafficked annually," meaning they are fraudulently used. The extent of the fraud is uncertain, the GAO warns, estimating the abuse of the program could be as high as $4.7 billion. About 20 million lower-income households receive benefits from the $64 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, to buy food. But GAO found that instead of being used for food, many stores are defrauding the program by "selling" cash instead of food. "For example,...

President Obama’s expanded food-stamp program certifying flea market retailers as vendors to provide low-income neighborhoods with fresh produce has ripped open a Pandora’s Box of fraud and corruption. This week federal authorities in south Florida busted the largest food-stamp fraud operation in U.S. history. Twenty-two defendants in the largely black and Hispanic areas of Miami-Dade County known as Opa-Locka and Hialeah swindled the government out of $13 million by fraudulently trading food stamps for cash. The crooked vendors operated food and produce stands at a local flea market as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative to eradicate “food deserts,”...

Dems Blast GOP for Letting Stimulus-Era Food Stamp Hike Expire Program is tied up in the Farm Bill currently in conference; Jackson Lee wants a standalone bill to bump assistance levels back up. November 1, 2013 - 7:32 pm WASHINGTON — Democrats lashed out at the GOP on Friday for the expiration of a stimulus-era extension of food stamp benefits as a family of four recipients began receiving about $36 less per month. The Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program is tied up in a congressional conference that began this week to hash out the House and Senate differences over the...

Food-stamp fraud in New York has turned into foreign aid — to black-market profiteers in the Dominican Republic. Last week, The Post revealed how New Yorkers on welfare are buying food with their benefit cards and shipping it in blue barrels to poor relatives in the Caribbean. But not everyone is giving the taxpayer-funded fare to starving children abroad. The Post last week found two people hawking barrels of American products for a profit on the streets of Santiago. “It’s a really easy way to make money, and it doesn’t cost me anything,” a seller named Maria-Teresa said Friday.The 47-year-old...

<p>EXCLUSIVE Food-stamp fraud has turned into foreign aid — to black-market profiteers in the Dominican Republic.... welfare recipients buy food with EBT cards and ship it to relatives. But not to starving children. The NY Post found people hawking barrels of American products on Dominican streets. “It’s a really easy way to make money, and it doesn’t cost me anything,” a seller said. She also vends EBT goods out of her Dominican home “I know a lot of people are doing it,” she said.</p>

GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) - An illegal immigrant was convicted Monday of public assistance fraud in Green Bay. Graciela Antonio illegally received $25,416 in taxpayer-funded public assistance for food and medical bills over three years. According to court documents, the 29-year-old Antonio, who lived in Green Bay, has three children. “Really the victims are the community at large,” said Kate Zuidmulder, assistant district attorney for Brown County. County workers discovered Antonio’s family should have been ineligible for public assistance, because she was employed under a fake name at American Foods, making $12.65 an hour. Her husband was also seasonally employed...

Understaffed food stamp fraud prevention units and lax anti-fraud security on Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards have created a thriving underground market where food stamp recipients illegally sell and trade their taxpayer-funded benefits, often using online websites like Backpage.com, Craigslist, or social media. That is one of the findings of a new report by the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) examining how the poverty industry has become a massive profit center for politically-connected corporations like JP Morgan, who have made at least $560,492,596 since 2004 to process the EBT cards of food stamp recipients in 24 states and two U.S. territories.

I spent the last few days down on the Texas/Mexico Border. One of my brothers got married to a Hispanic woman down here so we all came down for the wedding. We had a great time down here and I got to talk to a bunch of new family members. Some of the small talk we had of course wandered into the topic of border violence and life on the border. I have written many articles about this topic because I am very worried about the situation down there. I always love hearing stories from people who actually live...

Federal agents seized computers and records Friday from three Somali businesses that provide money wire transfers. Under warrants obtained through the U.S. Attorney’s Office, agents searched the Al-Amin Halaal Market on St. John Street, the Dahabshil Inc. money transfer business ... The focus of the investigation was unclear. The warrant for Al-Amin referred to any information relating to the wire transfer business, or to food stamp fraud... More than 20 agents searched the Dahabshil business, showing up at 9 a.m. and staying until about 3 p.m.,

Grocer sentenced in food stamp fraud case Posted by Mike Tobin May 31, 2007 14:41PM Categories: Breaking News, Crime The leader of one of the biggest food-stamp fraud rings in Ohio was sentenced to less than three years in prison Thursday during a secret hearing. U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster sentenced Amin Salem to 33 months in prison for his role in a $7.7 million food stamp fraud ring dating back to 1995. It's the second time Salem has been convicted of stealing from the program designed to feed poor people. Salem was supposed to be sentenced last...

A former grocery store owner already facing three years in prison for aiding a terrorist group got 14 months tacked onto his sentence Friday for swindling the food stamp program out of $1.4 million. Hatem Fariz, 33, must serve a total of 51 months in federal prison under the sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Milton I. Shadur. Fariz, who now lives in Spring Hill, Fla., also was ordered to repay the money he siphoned off by swapping cash for food stamps. At the same time, Fariz pleaded guilty in a federal court in Tampa to conspiring to provide...

After he’d gone 90 days without payment, my law firm informed Shihad that we could do no more on his case until he made a payment. He pulled a wad of food stamps our of his wallet and said, "Give me some time to sell these." Shihad, who’d won his asylum case a few months earlier, might have been eligible for food stamps, but he wasn't eligible to sell them. No one is. It's a crime. "Shihad," I said, "I'm withdrawing. You're trying to pay me with the proceeds of a crime." The commonness of food stamp fraud among America's...

<p>Accusations of food stamp fraud are the latest in a series of troubles to beset Nashville-area Somali immigrants since Sept. 11.</p> <p>The owner of Ramadan International Market — who is also the leader of the community's mosque — faces criminal penalties and the loss of his store. His customers with food stamps are turned away when they try to buy goat and sheep meat prepared according to Islamic custom.</p>