I sometimes think the media, which you might assume would want titillating headlines, downplays stories like this so people won’t bother reading it! Of course the headline isn’t going to say “illegal from Ghana” admits guilt! Hereis the Worcester Telegramheadline and story,
Worcester store employee admits to identity theft
WORCESTER – A Worcester man who worked at a city store whose owner was jailed for $3.6 million in food stamp fraud admitted Tuesday to stealing people’s identities. Yaw Okyere, 36, a citizen of Ghana who overstayed a student visa in 2009, pleaded guiltyto one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of possessing five or more identification documents.
Mr. Okyere was arrested last year after authorities said they found evidence of identity theft and dozens of boxes of pricey merchandise in his apartment. He had nearly 200 state driver’s licenses in files on his computer, authorities said, and apparently used other people’s identities to order goods through the mail.
Why is this store still open? Owner found guilty in 2016 of $3.6 million in food stamp fraud, the largest bust in Massachusetts’ history. She was sentenced to one year in the slammer. https://www.telegram.com/news/20160711/worcester-woman-behind-36m-food-stamp-fraud-gets-year-in-jail
Authorities allege in court documents that Mr. Okyere had intermediaries bring the ill-gotten goods to his day job at J&W Aseda Plaza, the same Worcester store where $3.6 million in food stamp fraud was perpetrated several years ago. Mr. Okyere is described in court documents as a relative of the store owner, Vida Causey, who was sentenced to a year in jail. He told authorities who raided his home she was his aunt.
The charges Mr. Okyere faces carry combined maximum penalties of up to 17 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000. He also faces possible deportation.
What! Possible deportation! Possible deportation! Deport him now and save the taxpayers the cost of keeping him in prison! More here.
I couldn’t find a photo of the Ghana illegal alien man, but wondered if that might be him standing outside of his aunt’s business!
What can you do?
This is one more story that should be reported in the mainstream media so Americans would have a better idea of the kinds of frauds to watch for and the kinds of fraudsters that are out there. Best thing you can do is to send this story out to your social media networks. Be sure to mention the student visa fraud!
A social worker, employed through a contract with Catholic Charities of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland was supposed to be checking on and protecting the nine children in the Rodriguez home, but instead she had cooked up a deal with the children’s mother to obtain the family’s food stamps.
In exchange she allegedly turned a blind eye to abuse and deplorable living conditions that resulted in the death of a five-year-old boy whose body was buried in the back yard.
The case became known to the police when someone called from PAKISTAN with a tip! WTH!
This is the latest news fromCleveland.com:
Estate of Cleveland boy found buried in back yard sues Catholic Charities
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The estate of a 5-year-old Cleveland boy whose body was found in late 2017 buried behind his mother’s house has filed a lawsuit against the social services arm of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland that employed the worker who was supposed to keep tabs on the family.
The survivorship of Jordan Rodriguez filed the wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court against Catholic Charities, its employee Nancy Caraballo, the boy’s mother Larissa Rodriguez and her boyfriend Christopher Rodriguez. Nancy Caraballo The suit accuses Catholic Charities and Caraballo of recklessness, negligence and failing to report abuse the boy suffered in the two years leading up to his death.The estate, administrated by Michelle Rodriguez, seeks to take the case before a jury.
“While we cannot at this time comment on what is alleged in the lawsuit, Catholic Charities protects and advocates for those who are most vulnerable,” the statement said. “All employees undergo thorough background checks and extensive training with regard to ethics and specifically their duties to report child abuse or neglect.” Jordan’s body was discovered buried in the family’s backyard in December 2017, after Cleveland police received a call from Pakistan that said Christopher Rodriguez confessed to burying the child.
Investigators responding to the call found the home in deplorable condition, and it wasn’t long before they uncovered that Caraballo, a parent educator at an agency contracted with Catholic Charities who was assigned to the Rodriguez family, had been buying Larissa Rodriguez’s food stamps at discounted prices and lying in her reports of her visits.
Caraballo was supposed to conduct monthly home visits to check on Rodriguez’s children and living conditions and file a report each time. But investigators subpoenaed her cellphone records and compared text messages between Caraballo and Rodriguez to the reports and found that, on at least 12 occasions, Caraballo simply showed up to Rodriguez’s house to pick up the food stamp card. She filed false reports that said she inspected the home.
More here.
The case will make you sick!
In February Caraballo plead not guilty here.
Then herein April she was sentenced to 3 years for the food stamp fraud.
And, now get this, she reformed in jail and was out in six months, here.
As is usual there is no mention of the immigration status of either Caraballo or the Rodriquez duo.
But I am interested in why a call to police came from Pakistan. Were there Pakistani convenience store proprietors in on the food stamp fraud?
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.***) 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 visaour 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 storyI mentioned above. Note that the vast majority of food stamp fraud occurs in small groceries and convenience stores.
I’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?
That is what the Associated Press reported yesterday when announcing that a Wilmington Convenience Store owner is headed to the slammer. A state by state list of where to report suspected food stamp fraud is here: https://www.fns.usda.gov/report-nutrition-assistance-fraud-state
New American, Debasish Muhuri, has been sentenced to 14 months and was ordered to repay US taxpayers $1.7 million in restitution for bilking the SNAP program.
According to the AP, he used the standard practice for stealing from the food stamp program which was designed to feed poor people, but instead is now used regularly by crooks running convenience stores and their patrons looking for easy cash.
Here is what AP said at Delaware Online:
Muhuri and his wife owned the “Mama” and “Mama Convenient/Uniform” stores in Wilmington.
Authorities say that between 2014 and 2017, Muhuri illegally bought customers’ food stamps for cash, normally paying only half of their value.
He then redeemed the benefits at full value from the government and pocketed the difference.
I’ve been following these schemes off and on for nearly 12 years after I became aware of the fraud in the county where I live. That store owner, Mohammad Khan, was ultimately arrested and sentenced to time in prison as well as ordered to pay restitution.
However, the jail time is usually short and I’ve never seen a case where the convicted scammer was deported.
I have dozens and dozens of posts at Refugee Resettlement Watch about food stamp fraud. Click hereif you want to see some doozies.
A favorite story from 2011
One of my all time favorites was this onefrom Waukegan, Wisconsin back in 2011. The story was reported in the Chicago Sun-Times, but as expected, that story is no longer available so it’s a good thing I captured some of it.
The crooks, Khaled Saleh, 46, and Fatima Saleh, 35 were arrested after Fatima tried to make a run for it with a suitcase full of cash while dragging her mother behind her.
After a north suburban couple’s grocery was searched during a food stamp and nutrition program fraud investigation, the woman was caught trying to flee with more than $350,000 in a suitcase, federal prosecutors claim.
The couple, who own and operate Sunset Food Market in Waukegan, allegedly defrauded the federal food stamp and nutrition programs of more than $500,000 over the last two years, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
[….]
Agents executed a search warrant at Sunset Market on April 26. After the search, Fatima Saleh went to her apartment and agents observed her leaving a short time later with a suitcase and her mother, the release said.
The Salehs used the same method as Khan had done where I live, and Delaware’s Debasish Muhuri did recently.
Customer with SNAP benefits comes in and wants cash. He or she sells benefits at 50 cents on the dollar. Customer walks away with cash (often for drug money!) and the manager/owner submits the full dollar for reimbursement by the government (well, by you and me, the taxpayers).
Reporter Katherine Rodriguiz at Breitbart recently cataloged her top nine food stamp fraud stories from 2018, here. But, you need to follow links back to see the names of the perps.
So, again, why are we kept in the dark about Debasish Muhuri’s nationality and immigration status? Is he here legally? And, if so through which legal program did he become a new American? If we knew how these criminal minds were entering the US, maybe we could fix the loopholes.
