Genuine is not usually a characteristic you could use to describe fraudsters; however, an article published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tells about two brothers who were genuine in their attempts to commit food stamp fraud through the East St. Louis market they owned together. Their actions were pretty straightforward when it came to committing fraud in a variety of manners, resulting in a loss of approximately $1.6 million to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The article details that the siblings paid cash to SNAP customers for 50 to 60 percent of their benefits value and kept the remaining amount for themselves. They also illegally accepted SNAP benefits for non-qualified items including tobacco, cell phones and purses. (I suppose you could eat those items, but I don’t think they’d taste very good.)
Apparently, the brothers also admitted paying less than face value for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) vouchers. (Did I mention that they also prepared two false tax returns and trafficked counterfeit goods such as DVD’s, watches and hats through their market?)
The brothers, both in their mid-forties, pleaded guilty to food stamp fraud, filing false tax returns and trafficking counterfeit goods. They are scheduled to be sentenced for the conspiracy that went on for about two years. Five of their employees have also pleaded guilty in the case.
It’s safe to say that these fraudsters are genuinely in trouble for not running a legitimate business. When their market qualified to accept SNAP benefits, they agreed to adhere to the government program’s rules, not steal benefits from those who truly deserved to receive assistance. It remains to be seen what sentences will be handed down by the judge, but we can count on the penalties to be the real deal. These siblings will have to pay for their crimes.
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