Food Stamp Trafficking Discovered at Old Town Grocery

Old Town Grocery and Carryout on Pendleton Street has been removed from the state’s food stamp program for the owner’s alleged illegal trafficking in Electronic Benefit Transfer cards.

Beneficiaries of SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, use an EBT card, which look similar to a credit or debit card. The card and its accompanying PIN number are used each time a food purchase is made and the amount of the purchase is deducted from the card’s account.

The store, located at 809 Pendleton St., is one of 15 Virginia retailers recently removed from the program, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There were 13 retailers cited for trafficking, which is generally defined as exchanging Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits for cash.

An investigative report about food stamp fraud by the Fiscal Times says the most common fraud occurs when a cardholder offers to sell the card to a merchant for a large discount and provide that person with the PIN. The author explains: “The seller would tell the purchaser to use the value of the card within a week, before the seller planned to notify the government that the card had been lost or stolen. By the time the government tried to change the PIN number, the value of the card had been used up.”

The Department of Agriculture in May said it would give states more power to investigate individuals and families who say they have lost their benefit cards repeatedly. More than 100 USDA analysts and investigators reviewed over 15,000 stores in fiscal 2011. About 1,200 stores were permanently disqualified for trafficking and over 600 stores were sanctioned for other violations such as the sale of ineligible items.

The Virginia Department of Social Services recognizes 18 retailers in the 22314 ZIP code that currently accept EBT cards, including area 7-Elevens, , and as well as corner stores Royal Market and Community Market, among others.

Across the state, there are 914,236 people who are subscribed to the SNAP program as of May, a 6 percent increase over May 2011, according to a representative of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service located in Alexandria.

The store was recently in the news when it was cordoned off after the Bitaywork Debebe, who was charged with receiving stolen property there.