A little experiment: Maintain SNAP pause for 30 days to see how drastically foreign shipments drop

 Recall a 2013 exposé from the New York Post that revealed a major scam in the food stamps world: Caribbean migrants, enrolled in SNAP, were buying up non-perishable items like cereal and baby formula, packaging it all up into those 55-gallon blue barrel drums, and shipping it back to their home nations, all to be sold on the black market for a quick buck at the American taxpayer’s expense.

Here’s a brief rundown:

Food-stamp fraud in New York has turned into foreign aid — to black-market profiteers in the Dominican Republic.

‘It’s a really easy way to make money, and it doesn’t cost me anything,’ a seller named Maria-Teresa said Friday.

The 47-year-old Bronx native told The Post she scalps barrels of Frosted Flakes and baby formula bought with welfare money in the United States.

For reference, the Dominican Republic is a very food-insecure nation: according to data from the Integrated Food Insecurity Phase Classification (IPC) published earlier this year, 9% of the population is at a “crisis” level of food insecurity (963,000 people), while another 18% is in the “stressed” demographic (1.926 million). Furthermore, the World Food Programme states that 33% of the nation “lacks access to a nutritious diet.”

But, these blue barrels aren’t the full scope: Maria-Teresa has a home in the DR, and she also sells from there, undercutting the local stores, noting that “a lot of people are doing” the same thing. Then, there’s this:

And the food-stamp fraud doesn’t stop there. She [Maria-Teresa] said her sister has Bronx grocers ring up bogus $250 transactions with her EBT card.

In exchange, the stores hand her $200 cash and pocket the rest. No goods are exchanged. Instead, Maria-Teresa’s sister sends the money to Santiago — when she’s not spending it on liquor or other nonfood items.

‘We do it all the time, and a lot of people do this,’ Maria-Teresa said. ‘It’s a way of laundering money, but it’s easier because it’s free.’

“Free” she says. Well, the $327,507 portion of the (current) national debt that I apparently “owe” says otherwise. Now, this was in 2013. How much worse do you think this scam is at this point, 12 years later? 

A little experiment: Maintain SNAP pause for 30 days to see how drastically foreign shipments drop - American Thinker