According to new information coming from Texas officials, 32 people were arrested in June for their role in a massive fraud scheme involving food stamps and the SNAP benefit program.
Prosecutors alleged that “over 300 purchases utilizing 92 different EBT cards from 61 different [SNAP] recipients were used to procure over $71,000 worth of goods.”
Officials have stated that food stamp fraud costs the federal government at least one billions dollars annually, as the program and how to safeguard it from fraud remains a highly controversial issue for US voters.
From Breitbart:
Thirty-two people were arrested in an alleged food stamp fraud scheme at a Texas restaurant that involved 62 people in June 2019, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office released a list of 32 people who have been arrested since prosecutors indicted 62 people on counts of electronic benefits transfer fraud.
The alleged ringleader of the scheme, restaurant owner Johnny Ray Coleman, was accused of using $71,000 worth of food stamp benefits to purchase food he then sold at Coleman’s Burger Deli in Beaumont, Texas, LMT Online reported.
Coleman was arrested and then later released on bond.
He is one of 62 people who took part in an elaborate food stamp fraud scheme using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, prosecutors said.
The Texas Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General conducted an investigation into the store’s purchases, prompting prosecutors to issue a search warrant for Coleman’s Burger Deli.
“From evidence seized and further developed by investigators, it was discovered over 300 purchases utilizing 92 different EBT cards from 61 different Supplemental Nutrition Assistance recipients were used to procure over $71,000 worth of goods related to the business,” prosecutors with the Jefferson County District Attorney’s office said in a statement this month.
Food stamp fraud schemes can be quite extensive, and often cost the federal government billions of dollars.
A January 2019 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that at least $1 billion in food stamp benefits had been trafficked each year in the U.S.
But some experts on food stamp fraud acknowledge that number could be much higher.
Kristina Rasmussen, the vice president of federal affairs for the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), told Breitbart News in an interview when referencing the report that the amount of fraud in this country “could be a lot higher than that.”
By CK Heltzel
Source: theconservativeopinion
See more here: news365.stream
