Vice President JD Vance said on Oct. 21 that federal investigators have uncovered about $42 million in food stamp fraud since September, in remarks at the FBI’s Cincinnati field office. He spoke alongside Attorney General Todd Blanche. The Justice Department’s own tally from the same day puts the cases in 13 federal districts.
The department’s release counts more than 40 defendants and about $45 million in intended losses from Sept. 1 through the announcement, with about $42 million of that tied to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps. Indictments, complaints, guilty pleas and sentences all sit in that count.
The people closest to this are households that use SNAP and the relatives who help them. Most of the cases described involve stolen card data, stores that traded benefits, or applications built on other people’s identities, so the benefits that went missing belonged to real families. About 1.4 million Ohio residents use SNAP, according to local reporting on the event, and the program is federally funded.
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What did Vance and Blanche say in Cincinnati?
Vance called SNAP “one of the most important social service programs” in the country but said, “We have way too much fraud in the SNAP program.” He described fraudsters who “quite literally steal from the mouths of hungry children in order to enrich themselves,” according to Fox19’s account of the event.
Blanche said the $42 million could have fed 220,000 Americans for all of October. He also told the story of a woman whose card was emptied by thieves before she went shopping with her children. In his telling, she had to take out a loan to feed them. Vance and Blanche said they want lawmakers to raise penalties for fraud convictions, and that a fraud task force will keep working on federal program fraud.
What does the $42 million actually measure?
The Justice Department calls its figure intended losses, meaning what the schemes aimed to take rather than money a court has ordered repaid. The roughly $3 million between the $45 million total and the $42 million SNAP share covers other USDA matters. The release shows one of them, a Florida farmer’s guilty plea in a crop-insurance case, as its example.
That Florida case shows how wide the surge reaches. Mark Frisbie pleaded guilty on Sept. 29 to false crop-insurance claims for 2019 through 2024, admitting he reported sales under $800,000 when he sold more than $6.8 million in bell peppers and tomatoes. He agreed to repay $1,748,408 to the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and $1,506,992.26 to the Farm Service Agency. Sentencing is set for Jan. 11, 2027.
The department says the work involved 13 U.S. attorney’s offices: the Middle District of Florida, Eastern District of Arkansas, Northern District of Georgia, Northern District of Iowa, District of Maryland, Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan, Eastern District of Missouri, Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio, Northern District of Oklahoma, District of Oregon and Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The Utah attorney general’s office also took part. Charges in the release are allegations, and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
How was the money taken in the biggest case?
The largest SNAP case came from Ohio’s Southern District, where Jorag Yaseen and Rami Kanaan were indicted. Prosecutors say their stores ran thousands of transactions using stolen Ohio and other states’ EBT account information, causing a federal loss of about $29.7 million. They are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, and prosecutors say some of the money bought vehicles that were shipped overseas.
Another case in the surge reaches beyond store counters. In eastern Pennsylvania, four people face a 39-count indictment alleging they targeted intellectually disabled women to take control of their Social Security and SNAP benefits, the Social Security Administration’s inspector general reports. Initial court appearances were held Oct. 14 and 15.
What does USDA tell households about stolen benefits?
USDA’s fraud prevention page says criminals steal benefits through card skimming, card cloning and other scams, and that the department is rolling out chip card technology and modernizing its EBT systems. The page links to separate stolen-benefits and scam-alert pages for what recipients should do, and it sends fraud reports to a nutrition program fraud reporting page.
The same page covers fraud on the recipient side. People who lie about income or identity, or who sell benefits for cash, face disqualification, criminal charges, fines or prison, USDA says. States run eligibility and monitor how benefits are used, and in May 2025 USDA told states to share SNAP eligibility data and set up a program integrity data team. The page puts the program’s cost at more than $100 billion a year.
Stores face their own penalties. USDA lists trafficking, which means exchanging benefits for cash, along with selling items SNAP does not allow and lying on retailer applications. The penalties range from temporary or permanent disqualification and civil fines to criminal charges, the department says.
Are your SNAP papers and reporting dates in order?
USDA says recipients who misstate income or identity can lose benefits, and states are the ones checking eligibility. For a household on SNAP, the practical protection is accurate paperwork and changes reported on time, which the federal announcement does not change.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer is a 20-page guide to SNAP and Medicaid renewals. It includes a renewal document checklist and a renewal and reporting calendar, plus 51 state packs, so a household can see which papers and dates apply where it lives.
Get the SNAP renewal document checklist and reporting calendar →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
