A US Department of Agriculture employee and five others are being charged in a 66 million dollar food stamp fraud scheme in the New York City area.
Prosecutors call this one of the largest food stamp frauds in US history. Beginning in 2019, they allege that Arlasa Davis exploited her position at the Department of Agriculture to assist Michael Kehoe in establishing a network under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. They allegedly processed SNAP benefit transfer cards illegally in stores around the New York City area. They say Davis allowed over $36 million in fraudulent SNAP redemptions.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff says “This fraud was made possible when USDA employee Arlasa Davis betrayed the public trust by selling confidential government information to the very criminals she was supposed to catch. Their actions undermined a program that vulnerable New Yorkers depend on for basic nutrition.”
Some of the defendants owned certain stores, which enabled them to receive a portion of the fraudulent transactions.