[Video] Vance Announces Task Force Results in Cincinnati: $42 Million in SNAP Fraud Uncovered, More Than 40 Charged
CINCINNATI — U.S. Vice President JD Vance held a press conference on October 21 at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, announcing the latest results of the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud that he leads: since the crackdown intensified on September 1, federal officials have uncovered about $42 million in fraud against the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and more than 40 defendants have been charged.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the press conference that the stolen $42 million could have fed nearly 220,000 Americans for the entire month of October, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data on average monthly benefits per person. "This is a concerted effort to literally take food out of the mouths of children," Blanche said. A USDA Office of Inspector General official said the programs were raided to line the pockets of fraudsters and bankroll other criminal activities such as guns and drugs.
"SNAP exists to help hungry children eat; it does not exist to provide private jets to a guy like Shawty Dred," Vance said. He also recalled his first job working as a cashier at Dillman Foods in Middletown.
Cases charged in this round include Mercedes New, an Atlanta influencer and rapper known as Shawty Dred, indicted this month on more than 40 counts including food stamp fraud, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, accused of pilfering more than $4 million in benefits between 2025 and 2026 by obtaining hundreds of fraudulent debit cards and making his company, Shawty Dred LLC, a SNAP retailer; he was arrested last week in Las Vegas. In Ohio federal court, Jorag Yaseen and Rami Kanaan were indicted for allegedly stealing almost $30 million in fake electronic benefit transfer (EBT) transactions through their Chicago-based food retail stores. In that Southern District of Ohio case (Case No. 3:26-cr-00099-TMR), the two are accused of processing thousands of sham transactions from February 2024 to April 2025 using stolen EBT account information from Ohio and other states, with no actual sales taking place and an intended loss of about $29.7 million; some of the proceeds allegedly went to buy cars that were shipped overseas. They are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald said at the press conference that the two were arrested in Chicago on Wednesday morning (as reported by The Center Square). An indictment is merely an allegation, and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
According to Fox News, the latest discovery brings the amount of SNAP fraud the task force has uncovered to $641 million. More than 1,000 retailers have been banned from the program for violations including criminal trafficking of benefits, while nearly 5,000 others have been suspended and fined a combined $44 million; officials have destroyed more than 2,200 illegal point-of-sale devices and disabled more than 2,000 compromised retailer authorization numbers, actions officials estimate have prevented more than $5 billion in potential fraudulent transactions.
Related: DHS Launches Large-Scale Crackdown on SNAP Benefit Fraud; ICE Arrests Five in First Wave
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：副总统万斯（左二）10月21日在 Cincinnati 出席「副总统反欺诈专责组」记者会。照片：白宫官方 YouTube 视频画面截图（已裁去底部横幅），美国政府作品、公共领域。 / Vice President JD Vance (second from left) at the Vice President's Fraud Task Force press conference in Cincinnati on October 21, 2026. Still from the official White House YouTube video (bottom banner cropped), U.S. government work, public domain.
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- 2026-10-21[Video] Vance Announces Task Force Results in Cincinnati: $42 Million in SNAP Fraud Uncovered, More Than 40 ChargedThis story
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