While no stores in Broward or Palm Beach counties were barred in the crackdown, Jackson said plenty fit the profile of shady outlets.įlorida, part of an eight-state Southeast consortium, is negotiating with banks for its system. ![]() Some of the stores actually worked as exchange houses, and little food – just cash – passed to recipients. 27 to bar 753 grocery and convenience stores from the $27 billion program, which helps feed more than 26 million Americans.Īmong outlets banned for food-stamp trafficking were Dade stores in Opa-locka, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Miami Beach, Hialeah and Miami Springs. Jackson is banking on the card to stamp out the kind of fraud that led the department on Oct. Agriculture Department, a deputy administrator for the 30-year-old food-stamp program. So far, 13 percent of nationwide recipients, including people in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, are using versions of the card, said Yvette Jackson of the U.S. 1, Texas became the second state after Maryland to replace the paper coupons with electronic cards statewide. ![]() With the card, a lot of that has stopped.” “No sooner would you get your food stamps than people would approach you and say, ‘I’ll give you 40 cents on the dollar or 50 cents on the dollar’ [for the face value of the stamps). “In some cases it was like an auction,” said Jay Spencer, who supervises state food-stamp fraud investigators in the Dallas area. Texas’ experience suggests that far more fraud exists nationwide. The jump in food sales indicates just how many of the paper coupons were being traded on the street or discounted by dishonest retailers and brokers for cash.Īccording to Agriculture Department estimates, food-stamp trafficking drained $815 million from the program in 1993 another $1.8 billion was misspent in the program in 1993 because of fraud and errors by caseworkers and recipients.
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