Skimmers May Have Stolen $233 Million in SNAP Benefits in Two Years, USDA Watchdog Says

As Jayeleauna Lewis listened to an automated voice describe the unauthorized charges on her food assistance card, a pit formed in her stomach. She pictured her 3-year-old daughter and their empty fridge back home in Indiana. On the 13th of each month, Lewis, 20, receives $486 from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. In September, minutes after the money was loaded, it vanished. "I was heartbroken because that's how I feed my daughter," she said.

Lewis says her benefits were spent on Sept. 13, between 12:11 a.m. and 12:13 a.m., across eight stores in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She says she has never been to the Northeast, and her physical card was in her wallet the entire time. Cybersecurity experts say she may have been a victim of skimming, when thieves extract card information from payment terminals and drain accounts.

SNAP has become a magnet for this kind of crime. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General projected that $233 million may have been lost to food assistance theft over the past two years, largely driven by skimming. In most states, stolen benefits are not replaced.

The scheme works fast. When a cashier is distracted, fraudsters place a skimming device on a payment terminal. It captures card data that thieves later collect to clone cards. Criminals typically mass-purchase items that are easy to resell, such as baby formula. "It's a very quick ecosystem from the point of stealing the card to drain," said Scott Schober, CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, who has invented several skimming detectors. "Sometimes it's within hours. It's that well-orchestrated."

Swiping is the weak point because the magnetic stripe on a card does a poor job of protecting personal information. Most U.S. banks have upgraded their cards with microchips that make copying harder. SNAP has lagged. Organized criminal rings noticed and zeroed in on food stamp recipients, often timing thefts to the start of each month when benefits arrive, according to Michael Peck, an assistant special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Criminal Investigative Division, who oversees the agency's skimming investigations. "These transnational organized crime groups are coming into the U.S. specifically to target our benefits system," he said. "They know they're stealing from the poor."

The Trump administration has vowed to eliminate SNAP fraud, saying it keeps the program from serving those who truly need it. But Kathryn Larin, a director at the Government Accountability Office, said federal funding cuts that began earlier this month will make states' efforts harder. "It will increase the budgetary pressure and will make it more difficult for states to allocate funds to benefit card theft prevention," she said.

The Agriculture Department told NPR there had been "continued inaction" against skimming long before the funding changes were proposed. "Skimming has been plaguing recipients for years, and States sat idly, allowing benefits to be stolen from those who need them," it said, adding that the administrative funding changes "should not make it harder to fight skimming."