If you ever wanted a real world example of why people get heated about border security, here is one that should do the trick. Two Romanian brothers who were in the country illegally managed to run a sophisticated identity theft operation that drained over $760,000 from SNAP accounts belonging to some of America's poorest citizens, as USA Journal reported. They kept it going for nearly a year. Not days, not weeks. Months upon months of skimming devices deployed across multiple states, draining food benefits from people who actually needed them to eat.
Catalin Dumitru and Marian Ovidiu Dumitru have both pleaded guilty to wire fraud and are now staring down up to 20 years in federal prison. Federal prosecutors said more than ten victims were left in "substantial hardship," which is government speak for people who were already struggling now had their grocery money vaporized by two guys running what amounted to a criminal franchise operation. The brothers would skim the SNAP account information, use it to buy goods, then resell those goods for profit. Entrepreneurial spirit, just pointed in the most despicable direction imaginable.
U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson laid it out pretty clearly. "These individuals came to the United States illegally and preyed on some of our most vulnerable citizens, those receiving SNAP benefits," he said. "They stole benefits from those who actually need them and then resold products bought with those benefits for their own profit. We will use the full force of the federal government to hold accountable those who exploit taxpayer funded programs and victimize citizens on government assistance."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is pushing harder on the fraud front. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins has said the administration asked the Justice Department to compel Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Michigan to hand over SNAP data the federal government needs to root out fraud. Four states apparently sitting on verification data while operations like this one bleed the system dry. That is a choice those states are making, and it is not a great look when the poster children for why that data matters are two guys who just pleaded guilty to a three quarters of a million dollar heist targeting people on food assistance.
The bigger question nobody wants to answer is how many more of these operations are humming along right now. SNAP fraud is not new. Skimming devices are not new. The vulnerability has been known for years. What is relatively new is someone actually treating it like the serious crime it is instead of a paperwork issue to be filed away and forgotten.
The Dumitru brothers are headed to prison, which is the correct outcome when you steal food money from people who have almost nothing. But if this is the case that made the news, imagine the ones that have not. Every dollar siphoned off by a fraud ring is a dollar that did not feed an American family that qualified for help. That is not a political talking point. That is just math.
Read more conservative news commentary at: USA Journal News
