Busted in Baltimore: food stamp fraud in the millions of dollars!

09/17/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 18th: Drudge is reporting a story that says a record 23,116,928 American households are on food stamps. I’ll bet a good many of those people have figured out how to get cash out of them through trafficking in stores like these.

This one is getting closer to home for me! I was first introduced to the subject of immigrant-run food stamp fraud in 2007 when a Pakistani named Mohammad Khan got busted in my county seat (Hagerstown, MD in Washington County) and have been following the taxpayer-scamming trend ever since. By the way, Khan incorporated his Hagerstown store in a seedy section of Baltimore.

You gotta hand it to Obama, these busts seem to be coming with more frequency than they did in the Bush days.

For readers wondering how this relates to refugees, it doesn’t directly or at least it doesn’t as far as we know because they never report the immigration status of the perps, but this type of fraud interests me and no one else is writing a blog on it, so I do as often as I can.

Here is our entire archive with probably a hundred similar stories on food stamp trafficking at immigrant managed and owned convenience stores.

And, this is the funny part about this story—-one of the stores busted is called “The Second Obama Express.” Hat tip: Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum who sent me this link to the Quinton Report.

Here is the story at WBAL:

A federal grand jury indicted nine retail store owners in Baltimore City and Baltimore County for ‘food stamp trafficking.’

Court papers said the retailers redeemed the food stamps for cash and split the money with food stamp recipients. The amounts totaled about $7 million. According to investigators, the retailers did not provide any food.

[…..]

Those indicted are:

Abdullah Aljaradi, age 51, of Baltimore; Second Obama Express and D&M Deli and Grocery, 901 Harlem Avenue, Suite A and B, respectively. From October 2010 through July 2013, Aljaradi allegedly obtained more than $2 million in payments for food sales that never occurred.

Dae Cho, age 66; and Hyung Cho, age 40, both of Catonsville;
K&S Food Market, 3910 W. Belvedere Avenue. From November 2010 through July 2013, Dae Cho and her son, Hyung Cho, allegedly obtained more than $1.4 million in in payments for food sales that never occurred.

Abdo Mohamed Nagi, age 54, of Baltimore; New York Deli and Grocery 1207 West Baltimore Street. From February 2011 through May 2013, Nagi allegedly obtained more than $1.2 million in payments for food sales that never occurred.

Kim Man Chu, age 38, of Rosedale, Maryland; Long Hing Grocery Store, 1131 Greenmount Avenue. From October 2010 through July 2013, Chu allegedly obtained more than $750,000 in payments for food sales that never occurred.

Amara Cisse, age 50, and Fanta Keita, age 45, both of Windsor Mill, Maryland; Simbo Food Mart, 2103 West Pratt Street. From November 2010 through May 2013, Cisse, and his wife Keita, allegedly obtained more than $600,000 in payments for food sales that never occurred.

Jung Kim, age 51, of Ellicott City, Maryland; C&C Market, 4752 Park Heights Avenue. From November 2010 through April 2013, Kim allegedly obtained more than $600,000 in payments for food sales that never occurred.

John Cunningham [wow! an American name, but I see he didn’t make the million dollar club!—-ed], age 54, of Baltimore; Cunningham’s Amoco, 4419 Park Heights Avenue. From December 2012 through July 2013, Cunningham allegedly obtained more than $348,000 in payments for food sales that never occurred.

If convicted, those indicted face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

That last line is ridiculous, they will all get less than 2 years! Khan was out in maybe 18 months, back in his convenience store and paying restitution to the US Dept. of Agriculture. We have even seen cases where former crooks come out and set the scam up all over again with a store in Mom’s name! They should just be deported!

See something, say something! Here is a link with information on how to report food stamp fraud. One tip-off to the trafficking scheme is a store where people are going in and out all day, but the store shelves are pretty bare. No one is carrying many bags when they come out. And, you might notice the owner arriving and departing in a Mercedes (this last is a joke, maybe!).

I had one story that still makes me laugh: when the law was moving in on an owner and his family, Mrs. Mohammed was dashing out the backdoor with a suitcase of cash and dragging her mom with her! Actually her name was Fatima Salah and her suitcase had $350,000 cash in it.

Syrian couple waiting for decision on asylum in Jamaica

09/17/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an update of the fishy story we posted on August 13th.

UNHCR coming to the rescue!

This Syrian couple with phony travel documents made it around the world—from Syria, to Lebanon, to Russia, to Cuba, to The Cayman Islands and were finally detained on their way to the US in Jamaica where they quickly asked for asylum. Until Jamaica, not one country noticed they had the same birth date on both of their passports? My guess is that this was some sort of a trial run.

Here is the latest news from Kingston’s The Gleaner:

The future of a Syrian couple seeking asylum in Jamaica since August is now under consideration by the Refugee Eligibility Committee and a decision is expected by the end of September, according to the Ministry of National Security.

The couple, identified as Fadi Al Lababidi and Hayat Hejazi, arrived in Jamaica from The Cayman Islands, en route to the United States in early August, but were denied landing permission by immigration authorities after suspicions were raised about travel documents.

[….]

The couple’s itinerary indicated that they “travelled from Syria to Beirut (Lebanon), Moscow (Russia), Havana (Cuba), and Grand Cayman to Kingston. They stated that they did not seek asylum in Lebanon or Russia because they felt these countries were friendly with the Syrian government”.

International asylum law says that legitimate ‘asylum seekers’ must ask for asylum in the first safe country in which they land; it’s not supposed to be a shopping expedition for the country of one’s choice. So why didn’t they ask in Cuba or The Cayman’s? And, where did these poor ‘refugees’ get the money necessary for a globe-trotting adventure?

Open season begins Oct. 1 for FY2015 Diversity Visa Lottery

09/17/2013 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I bet most of you reading RRW don’t know about this ‘ingenious’ (not!) lottery program the US State Department has been running for years (Congress made them do it!). You see we don’t have enough diversity in America’s immigrant population so each year the State Department selects 55,000 people (through a lottery system) who can legally come from around the world to live and work in America .

Cool graphic from 2009 Diversity Visa Lottery, most winners come from Africa and Middle East

However, once the number of immigrants from a certain country tops 50,000 in the previous 5 years, that country’s citizens are cut off from putting their name in the hat.

The program, sometimes called the Green Card lottery, began in 1995, see history here.

The State Department website is here. The countries and number of ‘winners’ for FY 2013 are here.

Nigeria (others) has been cut off for FY2015 and that is the subject of this short article at
Afrique Jet Actualité en Lignesubject.

BTW, I’m pretty sure the Gang of Eight’s Senate bill on “immigration reform” drops this program, but at the moment I can’t remember and am too lazy to go look it up (especially since the bill may be dying in this Congress). Supposedly the entrants under the Diversity lottery program are somewhat educated and come with some job training/experience (because Congress thinks we need more foreign workers to compete with Americans along with bringing the joys of multiculturalism to your towns and cities).

Nigeria barred from US visa lottery – Nigeria has been barred from the 2015 US Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme, according to the US State Department.

It said Nigeria was excluded from the DV-2015 because over 50,000 of its citizens have immigrated into the US in the last five years on the strength of the programme.

‘For DV-2015, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply, because more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years: Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam,’ the State Department said on its official website.

The DV 2015 Programme will begin 1 Oct. 2013 and run through 2 Nov. 2013.

PANA reports that the Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme, which is administered annually by the Department of State, provides for a class of immigrants known as “diversity immigrants,” from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the US.

The next time you hear someone (especially a Republican) say “legal immigration is fine, it’s illegal immigration I have a problem with” remember this LEGAL program and know that they don’t know what they are talking about!