It cost Pennsylvania $48.8 million to dodge federal legal action earlier this year over bungled public assistance payouts. Federal investigators and courts have since then been pelting Philadelphia with indictments over the same.

Locally, the owner of Twinz Meat Market at the 3000 block of Kensington Avenue was recently brought up on criminal charges for the alleged unlawful traffic of about $1.2 million in food stamp funds.

The case resulted from a joint investigation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General. According to the indictment, the Twinz proprietor in 2011 and 2012

knowingly used, transferred, acquired and possessed SNAP [food stamp] benefits in a manner contrary to law and applicable regulations by unlawfully purchasing SNAP benefits from individual SNAP beneficiaries who were customers at Twinz Meat Market in exchange for cash and for which Twinz Meat charged the beneficiary a substantial commission or fee.

Put plainly, someone with food stamps could ring up a $50 grocery bill at Twinz and then walk out with $40 in cash and no groceries. The owner would then allegedly pocket the difference as a commission.

There have been three such indictments for food stamp fraud in Philadelphia during 2015. That’s a lot. Biannual Agriculture Department reports list only two such cases in Philadelphia between 2005 and the end of 2014.

Two men were indicted this past January on charges in conjunction with unlawful food stamp transactions at a North Philadelphia grocery. After a 2013 indictment, a seafood storeowner operating on Lancaster Ave. in West Philadelphia was sentenced to almost two years in prison, probation and fines for related crimes.

A change-of-plea memo filed with the West Philadelphia case explains what alerted investigators to the possibility of food stamp fraud at that location. It also provides some insight with regard to how investigators led suspects to incriminate themselves. Agents, according to the memo,

observed customers lining up outside the store… A few customers would be admitted to the store at a time, with doors locked behind them. No customers went in our out of [the store] until each customer had completed their business. Then the doors would be unlocked, and a new set of customers let in.

The stings in these investigations are conducted in predictable fashion. Undercover agents present an Electronic Benefits Transfer card to clerks suspected of food stamp trafficking, request and receive cash, then leave without groceries. These transfers are later matched with federal payouts to proprietors’ accounts.

Public assistance has been an object of increasing interest among PA policymakers this year. In our upcoming print issue, The Spirit will report on a bill currently under consideration by the state legislature that would ban public assistance for people with drug felony records.