A couple of steaks shoplifted at a Gardendale, Alabama Walmart three months ago led to the biggest food stamp fraud investigation in Jefferson County's history, and launched 11 simultaneous raids at convenience stores countywide.
Led by the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, teams of law enforcement officers met at 5 a.m. for a briefing and then fanned out across the county beginning at 6:50 a.m. The officers and agents were armed with 242 arrest warrants and plans to arrest 17 suspects.
All 17 suspects were in custody by mid-morning, and investigators already have filed for forfeiture and condemnation of those 11 stores, which totals more than $1 million in assets.
"This is huge for us,'' said Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls.
The massive probe, dubbed Operation T-bone, targeted those they say have been cheating the food stamp system to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars and sending at least some of the profits via wire transfer to Yemen.
At the heart of the operation are Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, a government-issued debit card that replaced food stamps. There are more than 900,000 people who get government assistance through the EBT card in Alabama each year, and they are allowed to use the cards for food, non-alcoholic beverages, and other basic needs, mostly through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The investigation began in February when Gardendale police arrested a man for shoplifting steaks and some other items at Walmart in that city. When they interviewed the suspect, he said he was boosting the items to give to two convenience stores, and he named the stores, authorities said.
Investigators contacted Walmart's Global Investigations Unit in an effort to let them know they would like to attempt to sell property represented to be stolen to those stores, but when they told Walmart the nature of their probe, they learned the conglomerate was already investigating those two convenience stores for EBT fraud. Simply put, they learned, the store owners and managers were using EBT cards that did not belong to them to buy goods in bulk to sell at their stores.
How big is the problem? "It is enormous. It is pervasive,'' Raulston said.
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5 comments:
There is downright poor oversight of this program.
It's sort of like the humanitarian aid that we send to impoverished countries in Africa and elsewhere. The money and food make it to the dock, but it's stolen by gangs and corrupt officials and goes to the Black Market, lining pockets and funding crime and additional corruption.
It makes you wonder who's in charge here.
Is this happening in Salisbury and Cambridge too?
Very likely.
Wow. Welfare fraud? ?? Noo. Yet the politicians continue to look the other way . Dumocrats gotta get them votes. Go ahead commit a crime as long as I get Dat vote.
The whole welfare system is one huge fraud.
This is what you get when you give them2% business loans, tax exempt from taxes for five years, plus public assistance to live on, plus SSi income. Why should they work with in the law? They never get punished, citizenship and visas never revoked.
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