Fat Elephant

Fat Elephant

How Al Qaeda Gets Half of the Federally Funded EBT Cash

M Dowling

This is how EBT fraud works in cities like New York. They have federally funded EBT cards, and the city administers them. They give them to anyone, and they don’t provide oversight. You can go into a bodega, turn in your card for $100, with half going to the bodega and half to the owner, with no food changing hands.

Most of the money goes to Yemen. Al Qaeda is in charge.

Listen to the clip or read the transcript:

Transcript

“Harris, when I first joined the police department, regularly during an arrest, as I would go through the pockets of the arrestee, I would find these little bundles that had rubber bands around them that had EBT cards, and I didn’t know what they were. And they were in all different names, and they were called EBT cards, and that is the New York-administered SNAP benefits.

“And what happens is the federal government funds it, the state and cities administer it. How careful do you think New York City is with federal funding that they get that just shows up in the bank?

“Of course, they’re not.

“No cop in New York City will go very long without the story I just told. And you know what? I commend what they’re doing, but until I see a programmatic look at what goes on. Let’s say in New York City, where the bodegas, which are the small grocery stores, have a standing rule” that if you come in with an EBT card, we’ll charge $100 on it. We give you back 50%, $50. We keep $50. No food or anything else changes hands, and the perpetrator walks off with $50 cash. The owner of the store keeps the 50 bucks. It goes into his bank account.

“When I was working, 95% of that money went to Yemen, where Al Qaeda was in charge.”

 

Image: Shutterstock

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