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Haitians Allegedly Bilked Taxpayers Out Of Millions In SNAP Scam

Screenshot/Rumble/Justice Department

United States Attorney Leah Foley of the District of Massachusetts announced Wednesday that two Haitian immigrants to the United States were facing food stamp fraud charges.

Antonio Bonheur, 74, of Mattapan, and Saul Alisme, 21, of Hyde Park, were each indicted on a single count of food stamp fraud over a scheme that bilked over $7 million in benefits from two bodegas in the Boston area, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) release. Foley described how the bodega owners ripped off taxpayers during a press conference.

“These defendants exchanged SNAP benefits for cash, which they pocketed. Bohneur, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti, owned the Jesula Variety Store. Alisme, a lawful permanent resident also from Haiti, owned the Saul Mache Mixe Store,” Foley told reporters. “These two businesses were co-located within a single storefront in Boston. To be certain, these were not supermarkets. They were not full-service groceries. It would be a huge stretch to even call them convenience stores.”

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“In fact, the only thing convenient about these stores was how easy it was to commit SNAP benefit fraud. To put this in perspective, the Jesula Variety Store is less than 150 square feet in size, smaller than some bathrooms. The Saul Mache Mixe Store was approximately 500 square feet in space,” Foley continued. “By contrast, a supermarket can be 20,000 to 60,000 square feet in size, have a dozen or more registers, and employ numerous employees. Both the Jesula Variety and Saul Mache Mixe stores had one register, no carriages, no hand baskets, and very little food for sale.”

The DOJ said in the release that the two small stores operated by Bonheur and Alisme were redeeming as much as $500,000 in benefits per month, compared to $82,000 for one supermarket in the same neighborhood.

“One legitimate supermarket in the same area as these stores redeems approximately $80,000 in SNAP benefits per month,” Foley said during the press conference. “Over the last 20 months, the Jesula Variety Store was redeeming between three and six times that amount monthly, with nowhere near the space, inventory, customers, or infrastructure to support it. The Saul Mache Mixe Store redeemed over $120,000 in SNAP benefits in the last six months.”

“Simply put, there is no plausible way SNAP-eligible food could have been purchased from these stores for this long,” Foley continued. “Yet these two stores are alleged to have illicitly trafficked nearly $7 million in SNAP benefits.”

Welfare fraud allegations have garnered national attention since state employees accused Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota of engaging in “systemic” retaliation against whistleblowers who warned of the fraud schemes being run by Somali migrants in the state on Nov. 30. At least $1 billion in fraud has occurred and allegations that some of the stolen funds went to the radical Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab prompted a probe by the Treasury Department.

Allegations of similar fraud schemes tied to Somalia have since been raised by whistleblowers in Maine and Ohio.