A federal grand jury handed down indictments for 10 Baltimore, MD business owners charging them with stealing almost 7 million dollars from government food assistance programs. The owners have been accused of agreeing to debit cash for beneficiaries without selling food and then keeping a cut of the proceeds.The most exploited of the programs is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. People no longer use actual food stamps; instead they are given a pre-paid debit card that can only be used for food items like breads, dairy, meats, and vegetables. Instead of buying food, the indictment claims that the store operators allowed customers to convert the cards into cash. The owners debited the funds from the cards in multiple transactions to avoid detection.Of the 10 business owners named in the indictment, the biggest offender was Abdullah Aljardi who is accused of siphoning off $2 million in benefits over the course of three years. Now here’s the really funny thing: the name of this guy’s store is The Second Obama Express. Were investigators really that surprised that a store bearing our president’s name was involved in theft and fraud?The Department of Agriculture has stated that the level of fraud within the SNAP program has more than doubled in recent years. They estimate that $858 million dollars were stolen in 2011 alone. With the benefit payouts increasing to $73 billion dollars annually, the theft amounts are expected to go up.Food stamp fraud is nothing new. Before the implementation of safeguards most liquor stores would give fifty cents on the dollar for food stamps. Food stamps and debit cards are supposed to be only for specific food items, but there are plenty of unscrupulous business owners that will let people trade them for booze, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.Even when people buy the food they’re supposed to, there is still massive exploitation of the system. A few years ago, I saw a guy in the grocery store dressed in a nice suit with a Rolex and gold jewelry pay for his food with food stamps and then get in a high-end Mercedes. I have friends that work at grocery stores and they tell me it is not uncommon to see people of apparent means pay for groceries with an ABT card (that’s what it’s called in Cali).Republicans in Congress have cited such cases of fraud as grounds for cutting nutrition programs from an agricultural bill now being considered. It’s not that conservatives are uncaring; the system is broken and too ripe for abuse. People need help in these tough economic times but much of the aid is not being used for its intended purpose.A buddy of mine, who is as frustrated with this problem as the republicans, came up with an innovative solution. He thinks the stamps and debit cards should be ditched altogether and a series of state-run food stores should be established. These stores would carry only the food items required to meet basic nutritional needs. But there’s a caveat: the food these stores carry would be really bland or even terrible tasting. It would eliminate fraud, nobody would go hungry, and eventually people would get a job so they could eat something that didn’t taste like sh*t. It would also save billions of dollars a year.As for the ten Baltimore store owners charged with stealing from the system: they face 20 years in prison for each count of fraud. The grand jury will not be charging any of the recipients of the fraudulently obtained funds. US Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said that was because the storeowners took most of the proceeds and are expected to act as an “agent of the USDA, making sure the recipients get food.” In other words, food stamp beneficiaries can’t be held accountable for their actions. Article by : downtrend news
Posted on: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 13:57:02 +0000
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