Vance Unveils Nearly $42 Million in SNAP Fraud Cases in Cincinnati

Vice President JD Vance appeared with Attorney General Todd Blanche in Cincinnati on Wednesday to announce a nationwide enforcement surge against food assistance fraud, with actions against more than 40 defendants and nearly $42 million in alleged fraud against the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP.

The Justice Department said its National Fraud Enforcement Division, the Agriculture Department and the USDA inspector general ran the actions from September 1 to October 21. Thirteen United States attorneys' offices and the Utah Attorney General's Office took part. The department called it the first National USDA Benefits and Program Fraud Enforcement Surge.

In total, prosecutors put the intended losses at nearly $45 million across SNAP and related Agriculture Department programs. Nearly $42 million of that involved SNAP, the monthly food assistance that low income households receive on electronic benefit transfer cards. One other case involved attempted fraud against a federal crop insurance program. The actions announced on Wednesday included indictments, criminal complaints, guilty pleas and sentencings.

"These schemes siphoned millions from taxpayers and robbed struggling Americans of the benefits they depend on so fraudsters could use them for their own selfish purposes," Blanche said in the Justice Department statement. At the Cincinnati news conference, held at the local FBI field office, Blanche said the $42 million could have fed 220,000 Americans for the whole month of October. The USDA inspector general said the programs were raided to line the pockets of fraudsters and to bankroll other criminal activity.

The largest case is put at $29.7 million

The biggest case announced on Wednesday names Jorag Yaseen and Rami Kanaan, who prosecutors say operated approved retail food stores in Chicago. A federal grand jury in the Southern District of Ohio indicted the two men over an alleged scheme that ran from February 2024 to April 2025. Prosecutors say the pair processed thousands of transactions using stolen EBT account information from Ohio and other states. The transactions looked like real food purchases, the indictment says, but no sales took place.

Prosecutors put the loss at about $29.7 million. They say some of the money was used to buy automobiles for use and shipment overseas. Yaseen and Kanaan are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. An indictment is an allegation, and both men are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

A second case names Mercedes New, a rapper and social media influencer known as Shawty Dred, in the Northern District of Georgia. The Justice Department puts the intended loss in that case at $4.4 million. He faces more than 40 counts covering food stamp fraud, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, and prosecutors say he obtained hundreds of fraudulent debit cards and registered his company, Shawty Dred LLC, as a SNAP retailer.

"SNAP exists to help hungry children eat; it does not exist to provide private jets to a guy like Shawty Dred," Vance said at the news conference.

A task force number that keeps growing

Vance chairs the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, which President Donald Trump created by executive order on March 16, 2026. Administration figures put the total SNAP fraud identified by the task force at about $641 million after the cases announced on Wednesday. Fox News said more than 1,000 retailers have been banned from the program and nearly 5,000 others suspended and fined a combined $44 million.

The Justice Department said the surge disrupted criminal networks that targeted vulnerable families, and that the work will continue.