Day: January 15, 2019

Arkansas Food Stamp Fraud Bust Reveals Some Clever Twists on the Common Scam

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

You probably saw this news last month.  I know I saw it in several places because more news outlets have come to discover this type of fraud usually involving convenience stores and those Mom & Pop gas stations with the small grocery attached.
(Last year CNS News published a very useful report about how most SNAP fraud occurs in small grocery stores/convenience stores.***)

we accept snap
Last summer USA Today published the top 25 Food Stamp use cities in America. Some will surprise you! Have a look:  https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/07/25/snap-benefits-cities-with-most-people-on-food-stamps/37017367/

I suspect the prevalence of “new Americans” behind the counters of these small stores has something to do with the E-2 investor visa our government gives out regularly to foreign ‘investors.’
See the list of countries from which we are importing new American businessmen.
With an investment sometimes less than $100,000 a Pakistani, for instance, can buy a small store with the help of US lawyers who walk them through the process of getting in here with an investor visa.
Seriously search E-2 investor visa and you will find pages of law firms advertising their prowess in getting immigrants set up in business.
But many of the new American entrepreneurs aren’t willing to wait to build up their enterprises the old fashioned way, they have become experts at ripping off the US taxpayer—like these crooks who plead guilty in Arkansas last month.
From the Arkansas Democrat Gazette,

3 guilty pleas entered to food-stamp fraud in Arkansas

 

Raja Khani Zaman and his son Haroon pleaded guilty Wednesday before Western Arkansas Chief U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III to conspiracy to traffic in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [food stamps] benefits, conspiracy to commit money laundering and filing false income-tax returns.
Another man, Ahmed Zaman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic in food-stamp program benefits.
After the plea hearings, all three were released on $5,000 signature bonds. Sentencing will follow completion of a presentence investigation.
They face up to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000 on the food-stamp trafficking charge, 20 years and a fine up to $500,000 on the money-laundering charge, and up to three years and a fine up to $100,000 on the tax-return charge.

More complex tricks! 

Rather than the usual method of simply buying benefits from a customer desperate for cash at the going rate of 50 cents on the dollar, the Zamans used a variety of schemes to turn your money in to their money.

The plea agreements listed multiple ways in which the men violated the food-stamp program. They would allow beneficiaries to use their food-stamp cards to buy items prohibited under the program at twice the price of the items.
They would take beneficiaries, or send them, to other stores to use their cards to purchase items for resale in the Zamans’ convenience stores, then pay the recipients 50 cents cash for every dollar they spent.
The government said the Zamans committed money laundering by reselling products in their convenience stores that were purchased elsewhere for them by cooperating food-stamp recipients, according to court records.

Continue reading here.
Just so you know the person selling his or her benefits is also in legal jeopardy and I am beginning to see cases where they are prosecuted too.
That’s enough for now, I’ve given you some previews of what we will be discussing going forward as these kinds of cases are busted by the feds.
***Here is the chart from the CNS story I mentioned above. Note that the vast majority of food stamp fraud occurs in small groceries and convenience stores.
 
chart of small grocery fraud

question markI’ve been following food stamp fraud stories for years, click here at RRW and you will see some incredible ones that make these Arkansas scammers look like amateurs.
Almost never is a photo available of the perps. Why is that I wonder?

 
 
 

The facts on Immigrant Crime Published in NJ Newspaper

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 8 Comments

And, not only that!  The Trentonian, via an opinion piece by David Neese, reminds its readers in blue New Jersey about statements from politicians past that should have earned them (at least) a wrist slap from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

bernie and barack
So where was the Southern Poverty Law Center when we needed them?

You have heard the comments repeatedly lately, but I will bet a buck most Dems outside of the DC beltway have no idea both Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders were so vocal in their demands for border security!
Maybe I’m too hard on the mainstream media! Sometimes they come through with the truth!
The Trentonian:

Provocation: Documented facts about ‘undocumented’

Using at least two words that are now verboten in proper Washington circles, writer Neese begins with a little provocation about the hypocrisy that is driving us nuts these days! (Emphasis is mine)

Surely it was a white supremacist — or at a minimum a xenophobic bigot — who brazenly uttered these words: “We simply can’t allow people to pour into the United States undetected, unchecked, circumventing the people who are waiting patiently, diligently, lawfully to become immigrants in the country.”
But, lo and behold, these were not the words of some slope-browed yahoo driving around in a pickup with a confederate decal on the rear window right by the gun rack.
These were the words of none other than Barack Obama, spoken in 2005.
Okay, but surely the following words, spoken in 2007, were the sentiments of a Klan rabble-rouser:
“I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into the country who will work for lower wages than America works and drive down wages even lower than they are now.”
Nope, not Klan words. Those were the words of Bernie Sanders, socialist tribune for the toiling proletariat.

Then he gets to the numbers that no one should ignore:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) puts out a report called “Criminal Alien Statistics.” The 2018 edition notes 208,800 criminal aliens in state and federal prisons, doing time for an assortment of felonies at a taxpayer cost of $1.4 billion annually.
That seems like a lot of offenders behind bars if immigrant crime is merely, as frequently asserted, a “dog-whistle” term the Know Nothings employ to incite resentment of brown people.
Looking at a sample of 197,000 criminal aliens, the GAO reports an average 10 criminal offenses per alien among this group. Ten!
For the period roughly 2011-2016, the GAO reports the following number of offenses by illegal aliens:

— Drugs: 761,200 state, 336,600 federal.

— Assaults: 397,000 state, 108,400 federal.

— Weapons: 124,709 state, 44,500 federal.

— Sex offenses: 120,300 state, 13,600 federal.

— Robberies: 54,700 state, 13,500 federal.

— Homicides: 50,300 state, 6,000 federal.

— Kidnappings: 18,600 state, 5,000 federal.

Go here to read it all.
Thank you Mr. Neese and The Trentonian.  (If you are wondering, I don’t know David Neese.)
question mark
Looking for something to do? Get Neese’s piece circulating on social media.  Not my post, but his original (here) and consider contacting The Trentonian to thank them for publishing it.