By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-20 00:16:43 | Updated at 2026-09-20 06:17:35
6 hours ago
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has carried out a sweeping crackdown on fraudulent Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) retailers across New York City.
The USDA announced the action on Sept. 18, dubbed Operation SNAP Back. It includes hundreds of undercover investigations into 170 retailers—bodegas, convenience stores, and grocery stores—in New York’s five boroughs.
“This is just the latest action in the Trump Administration’s fight against fraud. The message is clear: if you accept any portion of an annual $100 billion taxpayer program, you must follow the rules or face the consequences,” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said.
The charges laid out in this operation include SNAP trafficking—the exchange of SNAP benefits for cash—and the illegal use of SNAP benefits to purchase ineligible items such as alcohol and non-food items.
Retailers involved in fraud schemes can face penalties ranging from temporary removal to permanent disqualification from the SNAP program, as well as significant monetary fines. In addition, fraudulent store owners can face criminal charges and prison time.
“SNAP benefits should go to Americans, not fraudsters or illegal immigrants,” said Scott Brady, the executive director of the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.
Since January 2025, the Trump administration has stopped more than $5.8 billion of fraud. That includes permanently disqualifying 735 retailers, term-disqualifying 3,700 more, and eliminating 1,600 fraudulent point-of-sale devices, according to the White House fraud ledger.
There are a total of more than 250,000 food retail stores nationwide authorized to exchange food for SNAP benefits, according to a June testimony from John Walk, the USDA Inspector General, in front of the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.
When recipients use electronic benefit transfer cards to buy food, retailers can make claims for federal reimbursement.
“Unscrupulous retailers will instead use their stores to launder SNAP benefits for cash. An individual will sell their EBT card, sometimes for pennies on the dollar in cash, and the retailer will extract the remaining value from the card or sell it,” Walk testified.
Retailer Fraud
In July, a federal grand jury in Florida indicted four convenience store owners—one is subject to a final order of removal—in an alleged years-long scheme to exchange federal food benefits for more than $19 million in cash through SNAP trafficking.
One store owner allegedly recruited SNAP recipients willing to exchange their electronic benefits for cash. Instead of making legitimate food purchases, recipients allegedly processed transactions through point-of-sale terminals using electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards to obtain inflated amounts of cash. Retailers and recipients allegedly split the money evenly.
The 2021 report from the federal department estimated that the total trafficked benefits were $1.3 billion each year from 2015 to 2017.
EBT card skimming is another prevalent form of SNAP fraud, including terminal cloning or processor fraud, according to Walk.
Criminals install skimming devices to capture benefit card numbers and PIN codes, use the information to clone the victim’s EBT card, and then cash out at the opportune time, Walk said during the hearing.
“Because cards are loaded monthly, the process is repetitive and predictable, creating a target-rich environment for skimmers,” Walk testified.
He recommended improving information sharing between the federal government and the states to enable federal oversight in identifying and preventing SNAP fraud.
