A federal indictment says two men used stolen Ohio EBT account information to run about $29.7 million through stores in Chicago. Jorag Yaseen and Rami Kanaan are accused of owning approved SNAP stores that rang up thousands of sales with no real customers behind them. The Justice Department announced the case on October 21 as the largest in its national food stamp enforcement surge.
How the indictment says Ohio card data reached Chicago registers
Prosecutors in the Southern District of Ohio say the men processed thousands of transactions between about February 2024 and April 2025 using stolen Ohio EBT information, along with data from other states. The indictment says none of the sales were bona fide. The indictment describes the men as owners of approved SNAP retail stores in Chicago, so the transactions would have posted like any other sale at an authorized store.
The accounts that paid for those sales belonged to real cardholders. Anyone on SNAP in Ohio or another state should know that the first sign of this kind of fraud is a balance that drops with no purchase to explain it. The release does not say how many cardholders lost benefits or whether the state replaced any of them.
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The indictment names three interstate wire transactions on March 4, 2024, together worth $1,243.46. Those three sales are small next to the total, which the department puts at an estimated loss of about $29.7 million across the full run of transactions.
The men face counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The laundering charge covers what happened to the money afterward. The indictment alleges that some of the proceeds were used to buy automobiles for use and shipment overseas.
Why $29.7 million stands out in the national count
The case is about 70 percent of the nearly $42 million in SNAP losses the department counted from September 1 through October 21. It is also far larger than anything else in the release. The Georgia case against the Atlanta social media figure known as “Shawty Dred” is estimated at $4.4 million, and a Lansing, Michigan, store owner case at $1,089,949.
Spread over the roughly 14 months the indictment covers, $29.7 million works out to about $2 million a month. That is the pace of a business, not of a single bad day. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in the announcement, “Under the Trump Administration, food stamp fraud ends now.”
USDA Inspector General John Walk said “SNAP fraud despicably robs from low-income Americans.” Acting Executive Associate Director John Condon of Homeland Security Investigations described criminal networks that use skimming devices, stolen identities and fraudulent retailers. Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald spoke of the human cost, measured “not in spreadsheets, but in the panic of a mother.”
The case is United States v. Yaseen and Kanaan, No. 3:26-cr-00099-TMR. The release does not name the judge handling the case, and it does not say whether the two men have entered pleas or been arrested. An indictment is an allegation, and both men are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
What Ohio SNAP households can do now
The first call for a household that suspects a problem is its state SNAP office. The USDA state directory links to the office for every state, the District of Columbia, New York City, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The federal agency says it has no information on individual applications, so state staff are the ones who can look at one account.
Complaints about USDA programs can also go to the inspector general, which takes confidential or anonymous reports online through its hotline page. The Justice Department lists the agencies that worked the surge cases as USDA OIG, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, IRS Criminal Investigation, the Postal Inspection Service, the Secret Service and the Social Security inspector general.
The National Fraud Enforcement Division, which brought the surge together, says it investigates and prosecutes people who commit fraud against the American people, and that it works with the agencies that run taxpayer-funded programs. Colin McDonald leads it. The division takes reports at its Justice Department page, which lists an email address, fraud.feedback@usdoj.gov, a contact form and a whistleblower rewards program but no dedicated tips phone line.
McDonald said the division is acting “with urgency, not just to prosecute fraud.” The Fraud Division was created April 7 and supports the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which Vice President J.D. Vance chairs. A report about one household’s card still belongs with the state SNAP office first, since the state runs the account.
Neither the Justice Department nor USDA has said how the Ohio account data was stolen. That leaves the question every Ohio cardholder is holding: whether a balance that looks right on deposit day is still right when the month ends.
Was an Ohio EBT card used at a store it never visited?
The Ohio accounts in this indictment belonged to real cardholders, and the sales ran for about 14 months, from February 2024 to April 2025. A household that finds a balance short has to report it to the state and keep its renewal dates straight at the same time.
The SNAP & Medicaid Renewal Organizer does not trace stolen card data and is not a government product. Its Part 7, Reporting Changes and EBT Problems, walks through what to tell the state, its 51 state packs cover each state’s SNAP rules, and its renewal and reporting calendar keeps the dates that follow a problem from slipping.
Get the EBT problem reporting guide and SNAP renewal calendar →
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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.
