When you imagine what an identity thief would do with your stolen information, buying food stamps might not be the first thing that comes to mind. (What kind of shopping spree is that?) But put yourself in the mind of a criminal who schemes on a grand scale and the motive for today’s fraudster becomes clearer. A recent story reported by Press and Guide tells of woman in Michigan who applied for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on behalf of more than 300 out-of-state persons, whose information she obtained from an existing—and extensive—list of stolen identities. (So who’s the keeper of this “stolen identities” list? Let hope that gets shut down, too.)
The woman then embarked on a scheme to traffic the state-sponsored benefits by selling them to people who did not otherwise qualify for welfare. She netted more than half of a million dollars (more than she’d get from just any old identity theft). Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Agriculture worked together on the investigation which successfully stopped this fraud scheme.
Ultimately, this SNAP-stealer was sentenced to 70 months behind bars, followed by three years of probation. She also was ordered to pay $518,358 restitution.
According to the report, states have at their disposal a wide selection of tools to track down and prosecute criminals who steal identities to commit welfare fraud, including a national database that spotlights people who apply for benefits across multiple states (that’s the ‘United’ part). MDHHS, specifically, is working on another that uses a data provider to validate applicants’ identities, and its Office of Inspector General is already in the habit of reviewing welfare-related data for signs of suspicious identities and other fraud. Clearly, these crimes are in the government’s line of vision, and it’s driven enough to fight them to innovate the manner in which it does.
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