And, wow, it’s a big one—$3 million dollar rip-off of the US taxpayer—from (surprise!) Minnesota.
From WCCO (CBS Minnesota):
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The owner of a St. Paul market was indicted in Minneapolis Federal Court Wednesday for trafficking about $3 million in food stamps, according to court documents.
Khaffak Sahib Ansari, 45 of Arden Hills, was charged Wednesday with three counts of food stamp fraud in connection with the crime. Ansari had owned the Stryker Avenue Market in St. Paul.
The indictment alleges that between January 2006 and Oct. 7, 2010, Ansari exchanged food stamps for money and ineligible merchandise.
$ 3 Million!!!
Court documents also listed that between 2004 and 2009, the average food stamp redemption for a store of similar size was just less than $324,000. Stryker’s redemptions during that time period came out to about $3.1 million.
If convicted, Ansari faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Check out the comments! As is often the case they are more interesting than one more ho-hum story about food stamp fraud. A common question: what is his immigration status? One commenter wants the sellers to be arrested too, not just the store owner who purchases the benefit, because of course it follows that in order for the store owner to break the law he needs food stamp recipients to also break the law by turning their stamps into cold hard cash (from you, the taxpayer).
One of the earlier posts I wrote on Food Stamp Fraud is still one of my favorites—an Arab-American publication questioned why all the food stamp scammers in a big bust all had Arab names. One politically correct attorney said, ‘nah, it’s just a weird coincidence—nothing to do with ethnicity—kind of like white biker gangs hanging around together and committing crimes.’ I kid you not!