Regular readers know I have a side interest in following food stamp fraud—not the kind where individuals buy stuff they aren’t allowed to buy—but the big fraud of buying food stamp benefits for cash (they call it trafficking). I maintain that there is a massive industry in the US where ‘foreign’ investors buy convenience stores and mom&pop gas stations and go into the food stamp fraud business buying benefits for 50 cents on the dollar from individuals and then collecting the whole dollar from you!
If you search RRW for “food stamp fraud” dozens of posts over the years will come up from across the country.
Now we learn that the Agriculture Department has supposedly suspended huge numbers of stores in one quarter alone. I just don’t buy it. There are surely that many fraudsters, I just don’t see this many being shut down.
From the Washington Post:
Concannon [Undersecretary of Agriculture] said that in the third quarter of this budget year the department fined or temporarily disqualified some 574 stores for violating program rules and permanently disqualified 1,016 stores for trafficking in food stamp benefits. [in one quarter?–ed]
I’m a broken record, but some real investigative reporter needs to expose this fraud. I think there is a worldwide network of criminals, aided by American immigration lawyers, getting into the US through legal “investor” programs managed by the US State Department. The criminals not only pad their own pockets, but are sending your food stamp money abroad.