Long Islanders in need among victims of scam aimed at benefits

Criminals have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars in food stamps and other public benefits from Long Islanders since 2022, part of a statewide haul totaling at least $20 million, according to state records and elected officials.

In Nassau and Suffolk counties combined, records show, they took at least $374,311, going after the funds recipients access with Electronic Benefits Transfer cards, often using a “skimmer” device at a point-of-sale terminal to capture critical card data. The technique works, according to experts, because the cards lack security features that most credit and debit cards have had for years.

Lawmakers have proposed fixes and law enforcement has cracked down — including the indictment this week of two men accused of running a multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud ring out of a Brooklyn bodega.

In some cases, victims of benefits theft can apply for replacement of the stolen funds. Taxpayers foot the bill. Replacement is supposed to take no more than 30 days, though advocates and recipients say it sometimes takes longer. In the interim, the victims, who generally live near or below the federal poverty line, may turn to friends or food banks — or simply go hungry. 

“They left me with 9 cents” in benefits, said Anna Saar, a Patchogue retiree who said she learned she'd been wiped out Jan. 2 after trying to buy groceries at a ShopRite.

The root of the problem, some advocates and elected officials said, is the EBT card itself. Introduced decades ago to prevent fraud, it has become a conduit, they said. Participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, the country’s biggest anti-hunger program, use EBT cards to buy food. 

Thieves trick recipients

Typically, according to the state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which administers public assistance programs in New York, thieves trick benefits recipients into giving away information about their EBT cards or simply skim it, copying the account data off the card's magnetic stripe. Later, they use the information to make fake cards that can be used to buy items until the recipient’s account is drained. 

Another strategy, called card "tumbling," uses computer code to generate many possible EBT card numbers and reset personal identification numbers for any that turn out to be valid, said Haywood Talcove, CEO of the government division for LexisNexis Risk Solutions, an analytics and market intelligence company.

The EBT card is so easy to exploit, Talcove said, that it amounts to a “glorified hotel room key.” Most credit and debit cards now use a microchip to generate a unique code for each transaction that allows the cards to be charged but thwarts counterfeiting and electronic theft. 

Transnational criminal organizations are behind some of the EBT thefts, selling the card information over the dark web at prices around 10 cents per dollar of benefits, he said. The perpetrators include include “Romanians, Nigerians, Chinese, [and] Russians" working from their home countries with accomplices and customers in the United States, Talcove said. Other operations profit, he added, by reselling illicitly purchased items. They tend to focus on expensive items like baby formula and energy drinks, he said. 

Limits to recovering funds  

New York began replacing some electronically stolen benefits in late August, following passage of a 2022 federal law that allowed state agencies the use of federal funds to replenish the cards. That law only authorized replacement of stolen funds through Sept. 30, 2024. It authorized replacement of benefits stolen as far back as October 2022.

Records the state assistance office shared with Newsday show the number of approved replacements with amounts each month from August through December of 2023. They don't show when the theft occurred. They also don’t show the total amount of stolen benefits, a sum that could be larger than the amount replenished but also difficult to determine because not all thefts are reported and not all thefts are eligible for replacement. A household may receive no more than two replacement benefits in a federal fiscal year and there are time limits for a household to report theft.

For Nassau, during the period covered by the records, there were 516 replacements to benefit recipients totaling $203,256. Almost half came in December, with 248 replacements totaling $92,157.

For Suffolk, there were 313 replacements totaling $171,055. Suffolk also showed a late uptick, with 253 replacements totaling $138,913 across November and December. Michael Martino, a Suffolk County spokesman, said the increase was likely attributable to increased awareness of skimming and the potential for replacement of stolen benefits.

The county’s Department of Social Services averages about 450 cases of theft per month, with an average benefit amount of $549 reported stolen, Martino said. A Nassau County spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Account emptied

Statewide, for the period covered by the records, there were 45,806 replacements totaling $20,163,855. Most were issued in New York City. 

Saar, in an interview this week, recalled the moment she learned her account had been emptied, with two weeks' worth of food sitting in front of her in the supermarket checkout line. “ ‘I’ll have someone put it back for you,’ ” the cashier told her.

“It made me feel terrible,” Saar said.

Later, when Saar checked her account, she discovered that someone had emptied it of benefits by making three large purchases at a Brooklyn convenience store. She said she reported the theft of almost all of her $424 in benefits Jan. 2 but, nearly two months later, was still waiting for them to be replaced. To buy food for herself and her husband before their February benefits arrived, Saar borrowed money from a friend, she said.

SNAP, a nationwide $127 billion anti-hunger program, serves about 2.9 million New Yorkers. In December, it served 43,938 Nassau residents and 117,278 in Suffolk, according to state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. Statewide, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the average monthly benefit is $233 per household member.

New York and other large-population states, including California, make enticing targets, Talcove said, because “there are so many people in the [public assistance programs], it’s hard to separate the legitimate from the illegitimate.”

Crackdown on scammers

Law enforcement has cracked down on some of the scammers. In January, a joint operation by police and the district attorney’s office in Orange County, California, snared 48 suspects in a skimming operation authorities there said was tied to Romanian-organized crime.

This week, federal prosecutors and agents from the Department of Homeland Security and USDA announced indictments in an alleged benefits trafficking and theft ring they said operated out of a Brooklyn bodega.

In a news release, Eastern District of New York prosecutors said two defendants stole $20 million in SNAP benefits as part of the ring, in at least four states using stolen or counterfeit EBT cards. 

Court documents submitted by the prosecutors described a pattern of “far-reaching fraud” that allegedly took place between April and December 2022. Prosecutors said it included “stealing SNAP benefits by swiping numerous counterfeit or stolen EBT cards through a terminal and entering corresponding PIN numbers without the knowledge or permission of the victims, many of whom were out-of-state SNAP benefit recipients.”

Prosecutors also said the defendants trafficked benefits by charging recipients a premium to receive ineligible items and cash in exchange for SNAP benefits.

Nassau police spokesman Lt. Det. Richard LeBrun said in an email that the department was pursuing “several ongoing investigations and takes all electronic thefts seriously. We recommend that all victims report any incidents immediately to the Police and always visually check all devices that may accept a card to ensure that it has not been tampered with.”

Suffolk police did not comment. Martino, the Suffolk spokesman, said county social services investigators have not been involved with any law enforcement investigations of theft and was “unaware of anyone being caught.”

Anti-skimming measures

Anthony Farmer, spokesman for the state assistance office said in a statement: “At this time, chip technology is not a viable option as it is not currently employed in the EBT industry. Changes to the EBT system must be addressed at the federal level before these cards and terminals can accept chip technology to make purchases with SNAP benefits. OTDA recognizes using chip cards is the most effective way to drastically reduce these thefts and is a partner in a USDA-led roundtable to discuss the modernization of the EBT industry, which will focus on a transition to chip-enabled cards.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, which has federal oversight over the SNAP program, did not respond to a request for comment, but on its department website includes a message that its investigators have responded to “numerous complaints” across the country about skimming and fake EBT cards.

Gov. Kathy Hochul last week announced a new feature for the state’s EBT cards, intended to thwart skimming, that will let users lock their cards when not in use. The state also recommends that benefits recipients take other steps, like changing their card PIN frequently and checking card readers for skimmers before use.

But advocates said those precautions may be difficult to follow for SNAP recipients who face language or technological barriers. “A lot of our clients don’t have computers,” said Robin Sparks, staff attorney in the public benefits unit for Nassau Suffolk Law Services, which represents Saar.

“They have a cellphone they get through the Department of Social Services, which is not a modern, easy-to-use phone … They’re kind of stuck with the technology they have.”

Edward Josephson, a Manhattan-based Legal Aid lawyer suing the USDA on behalf of victims of SNAP theft whose benefits allegedly have not been fully replaced, is among those who support chip cards.

“The cards you and I use to get cash out of an ATM or credit cards are protected against skimming because they have chips. Why can’t they put chips on EBT cards? I have not heard a satisfactory answer,” Josephson said. “The irony is that EBT cards were created to minimize fraud and abuse, but they are vulnerable.”

Pending legislation

Several state lawmakers in recent months have sponsored legislation intended to improve card security.

Assemb. Jessica González-Rojas, a Democrat who represents parts of western Queens she said were hot spots for EBT theft, sponsored a bill in early February that would require the state to start using microchip cards by the summer. New York already uses chip technology for its unemployment insurance debit cards. 

González-Rojas' office estimated the cost of chip EBT cards at $4 million, half of which, she said, would be paid by the federal government. González-Rojas cited a 2019 Visa study that found merchants using chip cards reported steep reductions in fraud.

“It’s a smart investment that the state needs to make,” González-Rojas said.

A co-sponsor, Assemb. Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat who also represents Queens, said the need was stark: “Through inaction, we are allowing constituents to starve."