It seems everybody's heard the stories about the abuse of food stamps. It was easier to spot back when they were paper coupons, but you still hear the tales. People buying huge prime steaks with food stamps, people buying gallons of sugary pop and candy, then going outside and climbing into a new Cadillac to drive away. These are apocryphal, though, for the most part, although this sort of thing certainly happens. I have seen it myself: Almost thirty years ago, when food stamps were still the big USDA coupons, I took a cow elk into a butcher’s shop for processing and was in line for the cash register behind a woman who was buying a huge box of prime steaks – with food stamps. I didn't bother to see what kind of car she was driving.
On Thursday, though, something much bigger happened. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York released information on a truly staggering food stamp fraud ring, now broken up.
Perry Carbone, Attorney for the United States, Acting under Authority Conferred by 28 U.S.C. § 515; Charmeka Parker, the Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General (“USDA-OIG”); and Christopher G. Raia, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced the unsealing of a Superseding Indictment charging six individuals in connection with a sprawling fraud and bribery scheme that generated over $66 million in unauthorized transactions under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”)—colloquially known as food stamps. This is one of the largest food stamp frauds in U.S. history. The defendants—MICHAEL KEHOE, MOHAMAD NAWAFLEH, OMAR ALRAWASHDEH, GAMAL OBAID, EMAD ALRAWASHDEH, and ARLASA DAVIS—are charged with conspiracy to steal government funds and to misappropriate U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) benefits, among other charges. DAVIS, a USDA employee, is additionally charged with bribery and honest services fraud. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff.
Here's how it worked:
Starting in 2019, KEHOE orchestrated a network that supplied approximately 160 unauthorized EBT terminals to stores across the New York area to illegally process more than $30 million in EBT transactions. Working with his codefendants NAWAFLEH, OMAR ALRAWASHDEH, OBAID, and EMAD ALRAWASHDEH, KEHOE submitted approximately 200 fraudulent USDA applications, misappropriating USDA license numbers and, in some cases, doctoring application documents, to obtain EBT terminals for unauthorized stores—including smoke shops and other ineligible businesses.
There's a lot more to it; this was a scheme that needed someone on the inside, that being Arlasa Davis, and a network of fraudsters to launder that food stamp money through. All the details are in the Justice Department press release; this is a level of planning and complexity that's pretty surprising. Not all crooks, it seems, are imbeciles.
You can see the indictment here.
While this isn't a DOGE issue, its result is the same thing the DOGE is trying to accomplish: Eliminate fraud and waste in the federal government. The food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has been marked with trouble from the get-go, including trading of SNAP benefits for cash, drugs, and a plethora of other illegal schemes. This one, though, took things to the next level.
The SNAP program is undergoing some badly needed reform, not the least of which is only allowing actual food to be purchased; no pop, no candy, no sugary treats or junk food. But these reforms won't always catch fraud on this scale; fortunately, we have law enforcement that will, and have done so. Kudos to all involved.
DOGE is finding billions of dollars in wasteful spending, and the Democrats are losing their minds as they realize their gravy train and woke projects are coming to an end.
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