A U.S. Department of Agriculture employee and five others are facing charges 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 U.S. history. Starting in 2019, they allege Arlasa Davis used her position at the Department of Agriculture to help Michael Kehoe to set up a network under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. They would allegedly process SNAP benefit transfer cards illegally in stores across the New York City area. They say Davis allegedly allowed over 36 million dollars 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 some of the stores, allowing them to receive a portion of the transactions.