As I said yesterday, scams are in the air. This is the story that first brought my attention to the rampant food stamp scams perpetrated by a certain group of immigrants. I first told you about Mohammad T. Khan in December of 2007, here. The wheels of justice turn slowly, don’t they.
From the Hagerstown Herald Mail yesterday:
HAGERSTOWN — The man who owned Nadia’s Convenience Store at 200 W. Franklin St. in Hagerstown was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison for food stamp fraud, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore.
Mohammad T. Khan, 40, of Hagerstown, also was ordered to pay restitution of $319,000 and serve three years of supervised probation upon his release, Marcy Murphy, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said in the release.
From at least Jan. 1, 2005, through Sept. 30, 2007, Khan and employees of Nadia’s routinely exchanged cash for electronic benefits card (EBT) benefits in violation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food stamp program, Murphy said.
[….]
Khan’s business was credited with more than $319,000 in EBT deposits for food sales that never occurred, Murphy said.
That he will be punished is good news, but what really interests me is how did so many immigrants, members of the Religion of Peace, get into the US with seed money to start these enterprises.
I followed Khan’s money trail through public records from his incorporation of the Nadia store in a seedy section of Baltimore to his ownership of the store, the ownership of an expensive house in Hagerstown and his purchase of a gas station all in under five years. How did he get to the US and where did his original financing come from? No one ever seems to go that far in these cases.
I’m wondering if these Pakistanis get into the country as E-2 Treaty Investors. If you have money to invest it appears it’s pretty easy to get into the US from certain countries. Pakistan is one such country.
Here is my archive on Food Stamp Fraud posts. This is one of my favorite stories. An Arabic publication wonders why there are so many Arabic names involved with food stamp scams and a US Attorney likens it to crimes committed by biker gangs, huh?