Fed charges: Yemeni, Haitian nationals stole millions in SNAP benefits

SNAP is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state agencies. Recipients use electronic benefit transfer cards, commonly known as EBT, to purchase qualifying SNAP food items. 

U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, Republicans from Texas, argue foreign nationals who defraud the federal government should face consequences, including revoking potential citizenship privileges and deportation.

If their bill becomes law, it could apply to two Haitians who owned Boston-area bodegas charged in a $7 million SNAP fraud scheme, among many others. 

Haitians Antonio Bonheur, a naturalized citizen, and Saul Alisme, a legal permanent resident, were charged with food stamp fraud by the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts. Alisme’s Haitian passport was issued in March 2021, expiring in February 2031, according to the criminal complaint. He was issued a Social Security card in November 2024 – the same month Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s administration reported the fraud accusation to the Biden administration. 

Bonheur’s 150-square foot store began accepting SNAP in September 2021; Alisme’s 500-square foot store began accepting SNAP around May 2025, according to the charges. Despite the small square footage, they received up to $500,000 a month in SNAP money, “outpacing full-service supermarkets,” investigators say.

Bonheur’s monthly SNAP redemptions “regularly exceeded $100,000 – with many months exceeding $300,000 and, at times, $500,000. By comparison, one full-service supermarket in the same area redeems approximately $82,000 per month in SNAP benefits,” according to the charges.

The majority of the transactions exceeded $95 worth of purchases, an amount “typically associated with large supermarkets, not small variety stores with limited food inventory,” investigators say.

Undercover operations revealed that “SNAP benefits were allegedly trafficked for cash” at the stores where “defendants themselves allegedly worked the cash registers and personally exchanged SNAP benefits for cash” and sold liquor in exchange for SNAP benefits, the charges say.

They also allegedly sold MannaPacks produced by the nonprofit Feed My Starving Children, authorities allege. The vitamin-and-mineral fortified rice meal and potato packs are specifically formulated to help malnourished and impoverished children living overseas. They were selling them for $8 each, “profiting from food intended for humanitarian relief,” the district attorney’s office said.

“Because both stores carried little legitimate food inventory and generated minimal lawful revenue, the defendants allegedly relied almost entirely on USDA-funded SNAP redemptions as their source of income,” the charges say. “To conceal the nature and source of these funds, the defendants allegedly maintained numerous secondary bank accounts through which SNAP proceeds were transferred, withdrawn as cash and redeposited to create the appearance of legitimate business activity while obscuring the true source of funds. 

In another case, a bodega in Brooklyn was “Ground Zero” for an alleged Yemeni immigrant scheme that stole $20 million of SNAP benefits from thousands of low-income individuals and families living in at least 10 states. 

Last February, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York charged Dawood Kassim (Badr al din Kassim) and Dia Alqalisi (Diaaldeen Alqalisi) with SNAP fraud. 

The charges allege they conducted fraudulent SNAP transactions out of Throop Farm Market in Bedford-Stuyvesant. This involved allowing SNAP recipients to exchange SNAP benefits for cash or non-SNAP eligible goods, including beer, in exchange for a kickback, the charges allege. It also involved using counterfeit and stolen SNAP EBT cards, stealing more than $7 million from SNAP recipients living outside of New York, according to the charges.

The detention memo filed in Kassim’s case states he was born in Yemen but later became a U.S. citizen, the U.S. attorney’s office confirmed to The Center Square.

Kassim is listed as a licensed real estate agent with United 726-728 Realty LLC in New York. The license is active since 2022, according to state records. 

Alqalisi appears to claim to be born in the U.S. to Yemeni immigrant parents, is a CUNY graduate, former Virtusa Information Technology intern and Uber driver whose stated hobby is “reading on ethical hacking,” according to his WayUp profile.

Oklahoma residents were particularly hard hit by the scheme, a local NBC News affiliate reported. State authorities said they had no way of reimbursing the residents whose EBT funds were stolen in New York.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has required state agencies to share state SNAP data to ensure that “illegal immigrants aren’t getting benefits meant for American families.” As of December, 29 states had complied. Twenty-one Democratic states refused to comply and sued. Rollins said the USDA has “already uncovered massive fraud.”  

The USDA is encouraging fraud to be reported online or by calling 1-800-424-9121.