‘Left me with nothing’: Thieves stealing millions in SNAP benefits

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - LaKenya Moore is a single mother of five who recently moved from Louisiana to metro Atlanta.

On Jan. 7, 2025, Moore was trying to buy groceries on the same day her supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) benefits were deposited onto her electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card, debit cards with magnetic strips into which the federal government deposits welfare assistance.

But her benefits were already gone.

“It was exactly $1,111 that they took, the full amount within minutes of [the funds] being loaded,” Moore said. “They knew exactly what was on there; $196, then $198, then $194, and they went until nothing was left.”

Records show six charges from Miami and Tampa to Pennsylvania occurred within one minute and six seconds. “The scammers literally drained my EBT card in two minutes and left me with nothing,” Moore said.

Another mom in Buford, Georgia, recounted a similar theft. Her showed eight fraudulent transactions in Pennsylvania, Florida, New York, and New Jersey from Jan. 23, 2025, all within two minutes beginning at 1:42 a.m. Five of the location addresses matched Moore’s fraudulent transactions.

“I have seven children to feed and now I have no way to feed them,” the woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, said.

Families who’ve had their food benefits stolen this month are now finding out there’s no money left to replace them after federal funds to reimburse stolen benefits ended in December, but the fraud is increasing at an alarming rate.

An Atlanta News First investigation found thieves are swiping millions in federal taxpayer dollars, while families across the country go hungry, and there’s no mandatory plan in place to make the cards more secure.

Atlanta News First Investigates ed several of the stores alleged to have been involved with the fraud. One of those is a pizza restaurant whose employee said doesn’t accept EBT cards. It has checked cameras for the transactions, but in some, no one is at the and other transactions took place after the shop is closed.

Another location is the Pottsville Tobacco & Hookah in Pennsylvania, where manager Ghazy Ali said his store no longer accepts EBTs. The store has also been ed by at least a dozen people from different states over the last two months accusing the store of allowing people to steal their SNAP benefits.

“I have kids,” Ali said. “I feel bad for those people that they have kids. Sometimes, people cried on the phone and it hurt me. I said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know who’s doing it, but it’s not really the stores because I don’t know what’s going on.’ ”

Even though many of the transactions are taking place after Ali’s store closes, the negative Google reviews keep accusing the store of stealing and allowing skimmers.

Ali said a police officer showed up at his store last week after someone filed a report. “Nobody’s stopping it,” he said. “I don’t know how this hacker is doing it.”

Everyone who ed Atlanta News First Investigates in January said when they called to report the fraud to the Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS), they were told the deadline to get reimbursed was Dec. 20, 2024, and they could no longer get the funds replaced.

In December 2022 and amid a rise in skimming fraud, Congress ed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which allowed state agencies to use federal funds to replace stolen SNAP benefits. The original September 2024 deadline was extended to Dec. 20, 2024.

“Without further action from the federal government, SNAP customers reporting SNAP benefits stolen on or after Dec. 21, 2024, are not eligible for replacement benefits,” a DHS spokesperson said. “This was a federally instituted and funded program that the previous Congress opted to no longer fund.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) food and nutrition service isters SNAP benefits at the federal level. Atlanta News First Investigates reviewed the fraud and reimbursement data states submitted to the USDA in 2024. It revealed an alarming uptick in fraud across the country:

• States reported a total of $43.5 million in stolen in SNAP benefits in 2024’s first quarter.
• In the fourth quarter, that number had more than quadrupled to $194 million.
• The total amounts stolen in 2024 was $345,786,818.61.

“The big question is how are criminals able to steal from SNAP participants?” said Salaam Bhatti, SNAP director at the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C.-advocacy group against poverty-related hunger in the U.S. “A lot of people think EBT cards have protections like chips, CVV numbers and expiration dates, but that’s not the case.”

In late August, the USDA modified standards to allow states to implement SNAP EBT cards with chip technology. In a memo to the nation’s governors in November, then-USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsack wrote, “The industry shift toward chip cards has proven an effective method to safeguard card usage from theft and fraud ... The USDA strongly urges all states to adopt the new EBT standards, and to work with your EBT processor and SNAP retailers in your state to transition to SNAP chip cards as soon as feasible.”

The USDA covers 50 percent of state’s EBT istrative fess which would include the transition to chip cards. The USDA also said replacing benefits is now a state responsibility, even though many states have not factored that responsibility into their budgets.

A Georgia DHS spokesperson said the department is “exploring options to further improve card security and to increase the tools available to protect customers’ benefits against fraud,” adding card chipping is “not yet possible in Georgia because most EBT vendors’ point-of-sale systems do not chipped cards.”

The department said it has no further recourse. “All benefits are federally funded,” the DHS spokesperson said. “Thus, all replacement and regular benefits are authorized by Congress.”

But EBT cards are also for welfare assistance including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) which can help with medicine.

In Covington, Georgia, Patrice Hayes’ SNAP benefits were stolen on Jan. 13, 2025, adding two of her neighbor’s cousins - one in Georgia and another in Ohio - were also victims of the same type of theft. Hayes said DHS told her to report it to their fraud department and to lock her card when not using it.

Georgia DHS, along with 14 other states, implemented a smartphone app and security feature in December called ConnectEBT, allowing recipients to lock their cards before and after use, monitor their balance, deposits, and transaction activity, as well as change their PIN.

Currently, California and Oklahoma are working to transition to EBT cards with chip technology for their SNAP programs. The USDA is also testing out mobile payments in Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Oklahoma, according to insight from the Congressional Research Service.

The USDA did not respond to requests for comment.

The Georgia DHS said anyone who believes they’ve been a victim of EBT fraud should “change their PIN and lock or replace their card immediately and then report the incident to the DHS Office of Inspector General at [email protected] or 877-423-4746, option 6.“

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