Month: April 2011

Canada has immigrant “investors” ripping it off too!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been writing for years about LEGAL immigration programs in the US that allow those people from a whole long list of countries who have a little money to “invest” to get into the US and buy such things as mom and pop gas stations and convenience stores only to turn them into fraudulent enterprises most notably stealing from the food stamp program. (See my earlier post this a.m. for example)

Now, we learn that Canada, greedy for “investors” too, has a legal immigration program that is a major fraud operation.  Here is a long story and an investigation by the Globe and Mail about how Canada is being hoodwinked by unscrupulous Chinese “investors.”

Here is just one little bit from the Globe’s story:

But a bigger threat may lurk abroad. More than 80 per cent of the companies The Globe’s counterfeit client asked for help offered to sugarcoat the past, even if it includes a criminal conviction and time in jail.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney confirms that “crooked consultants” in such places as India, Pakistan and especially China are a problem. “A lot of people,” he said in an interview, “are willing to pay a lot of money to cut corners.”

I wish we had a news gathering organization as aggressive as the Globe and Mail which actually set up a sting operation to get this story.

Our American food stamp scams (convenience stores owned by immigrant investors)  would be a great subject for such a sting!

By the way, if you are interested in more on how the American E-2 Treaty Investor program works, see this post I wrote last year at this time.  Note that we even have law firms in some cities helping the “investors” get here and acquire their very own personal convenience store!

Egyptian border confusion: IDF unit refuses to send “refugees” back to Egypt

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The incident highlights the political confusion (lack of will?)  in Israel regarding asylum seekers and economic migrants pouring into the country—-help migrants knowing that by doing so Israel could soon be taken over from within?  It is the same story here, it’s just that the US is bigger and it will take longer before we know we are finished.

From Haaretz:

Soldiers and officers in a reserve battalion that served on the Egyptian border in recent weeks have told their commanders they will not take part in “immediate return” – the sending back to Egypt of Africans sneaking into Israel. The brigade commander, meanwhile, has confirmed that the battalion will not carry out “immediate return.”

The Negev Brigade’s elite reconnaissance battalion completed a three-week deployment on the border. Nearly every night, Africans crossed the frontier, mostly Sudanese and Eritreans, and at least one time, Libyans.

Early in the deployment, a family of Eritreans was stopped. A company commander was ordered to send the transients back toward an Egyptian checkpoint.

The soldiers and officers had heard descriptions from colleagues who regularly serve in the area about abuse of the Africans by Egyptian border policemen – violence, rape and murder – and refused to carry out the order. The commander contacted the battalion commander, Lt. Col. (res. ) Avi Friedman.

Friedman supported his men and contacted the brigade commander, Col. Yair Barkat, who then agreed that the troops would not carry out “immediate return.”

During the deployment, Africans received medical treatment, food, drink and were taken to a holding area on the Israeli side of the border.

Officer:   “Israel has a problem, and they don’t know what to do, so they fob it off on the army.”

Soldiers and officers from the battalion who spoke to Haaretz asked to remain anonymous. “We’re proud of what we did, but we don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” one said. “What we had to say we said internally, to the battalion and brigade commanders. Israel has a problem, and they don’t know what to do, so they fob it off on the army.”

For further reading on Israel’s “refugee” issues we have a whole category, here.

Michigan: This food stamp fraud case involves Vietnamese

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This may be the first time I’ve seen a case where Vietnamese immigrants are running a convenience store food stamp scam.   Although that Seattle Chinese grocer a few weeks back employed Vietnamese who were scooped up in the bust with the store owner.

New readers, these are not scams involving petty food stamp fraud, like all the other cases (just had one two days ago, Indians probably) this case involves the big scam—trading cash for stamps usually at 50 cents on the dollar.  The customer gets the cash and the store owner/manager turns in the claim to the Department of Agriculture (American tax payer) for the full one dollar.  It’s a redistribution of wealth, but I must say based on the number of busts I’m seeing, the Obama Administration seems to be cracking down pretty well.  I just noted this week also that Open Borders advocates are furious that the Obama Administration for deporting illegal aliens at very high rates, here.

And, one more point, I get alerts on these cases almost daily and I think I have never seen one that involves a Smith, Jones or other traditional American name, they virtually all involve immigrant run stores.

From the Grand Rapids Press:

GRAND RAPIDS – The owners of a Marathon C-Store pleaded guilty to food-stamp fraud for redeeming government food benefits in exchange for cash and ineligible items.

Hai “Henry” Bui, and his wife, Thao Thi Trinh, entered the pleas Thursday in U.S. District Court. Earlier, his brother, Cuong Thahn “John” Bui, who worked as manager, and a nephew, Tuyen Khanh Nguyen, a clerk, pleaded guilty to charges in the scheme at 1405 Burton St. SE.

The defendants redeemed electronic food-stamp benefits and Women, Infant and Children benefits for cash and unapproved items such as cigarettes, phone cards and gasoline – at a 100 percent markup, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler wrote in court papers.

The government has seized $260,000 from the defendants.

I wonder how much they actually stole because the seizure of money and property is usually far less than the full amount of the thievery.

Why do I write about these cases when it may not directly involve refugees (although these Vietnamese may in fact have come here in the refugee program)?  I write about these cases because no one else does, no one else links all the immigrant fraud schemes.    Oh, and beware,  just a reminder, I have seen some cases now where the seller of the food stamp benefit is also brought up on legal charges.

I’m sorry I never made a special category for ‘food stamp fraud’ here at RRW, but I had no idea when we had a case locally 3 years ago that it would be so widespread.  Just use our search function for ‘food stamp fraud’ and you will see dozens of similar cases.

The Far-Left has deeply infiltrated the so-called “faith community”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Far-Left Progressives figured out decades ago that in order to control the people and bring about their big government vision of the (borderless) world they needed to get to the churches and take them over (or take over as many as they could).

Saul Alinsky knew this in the 1950s and ’60s.  Later Chicago groups like UNO (United Neighborhood Organization) took up where Alinsky left off.  A mostly Hispanic group, UNO, which Stanley Kurtz, writing in ‘Radical-in-Chief,’ says Obama  worked with in the 1980’s, literally worked to take over entire churches from within.

Now comes a lengthy report from the Center for American Progress (probably just in time for the Easter weekend) to tell us how deeply the Left, with the government as sugar-daddy, is intertwined with the “faith community.”   The article is basically a plea to keep the taxpayer money flowing to “churches” so they can continue to lobby for “social, economic and environmental justice” all the while supposedly helping the poor and downtrodden.  Indeed they say it wouldn’t be fair to now pull them off the government teat.  They need the money to keep the masses in line, dependent on them, and voting Left.

You will have to read the whole thing, but do keep it for future reference because it’s kind of blueprint for which supposed faith groups are in deep with the Socialists (Marxists) at John Podesta’s (and Van Jones’) Center for American Progress.  As you prepare for the Holy days ahead, be sure to check out whether your faith group is a friend of the Socialists.

At the end of the article, the authors quote a supposed Catholic nun (I say supposed because she isn’t Catholic in my view*) who sums up exactly what is happening:

Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK—a leading Catholic social justice advocacy organization—said in an interview for this article that the budget battle is more than a war of numbers and words. It is a fight “for the soul of our nation.”

It is indeed a fight for the soul of our nation—will we be a free country or a Communist country, that is the essence of what we are fighting over!

* We know the whole US Conference of Catholic Bishops has gone far Left.   I’m ready for a breakaway Catholic Church, does anyone know if there is one?

California food stamp fraud bust and a suggestion

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you are a regular reader this will sound like the same old story about immigrants running a food stamp fraud scheme.  It is.

From News 10 in Sacramento:

SACRAMENTO, CA – Two Stockton convenience store owners/operators charged with defrauding the government and taxpayers of $193,608 in food stamp benefits have pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized use of food stamps.

Lauren Horwood, spokeswoman for the U.S. District Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of California, says Sukhwinder Singh, 54, and Charan Singh Dhillon, 58, admitted that beginning in 2007, they began to illegally buy food stamps for cash, typically at 50 cents on the dollar.

As part of the plea deal reached with federal prosecutors, Singh and Dhillon forfeited more than $90,000 in cash and a BMW. [but they ripped off at least $193,000!—ed]

Singh owns Fast and Easy Mart, Dhillon owns Quick and Stop Mart, and they’re co-owners of Quick Stop Mart, all in Stockton. All three stores had been approved to redeem food stamps.

You know they could solve this whole problem overnight if the federal government allowed only large reputable food stores to take food stamps.   No more food stamps redeemed at convenience stores and this taxpayer rip-off would end instantly.

By the way, you too can help identify food stamp scammers.  If you have a convenience store nearby and notice a lot of traffic in and out of the store and especially if the shelves are understocked, those are both tip-offs that the store might be a scam.   Maybe you can engage some frequent visitors to the store in conversation and get a tip that way.   Then report your suspicions to your local police and they will take it from there.   But, be patient, it can take 18 months or more from tip-off until arrest as the investigation requires setting up a sting and then it takes time to unfold.

Use our search function for ‘food stamp fraud’ and see dozens of similar stories.