93 Oakland County residents reported SNAP fraud to sheriff’s office in 2023

More than 90 low-income residents of Oakland County reported to the county sheriff in 2023 that their food stamp benefits had been stolen, according to 365 pages of police reports Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through a records request.

Criminals stole most of those benefits from the 93 victims by placing a skimmer at point-of-sale machines at gas stations, liquor stores and grocery stores. The fraudsters copy information from benefit cards, clone the cards, and then sell the information on the dark web or social media.

Ten police reports said the stolen benefits were spent at a Save-A-Lot store in Pontiac. The Oakland County Sheriff’s office tried to redact all the dollar amounts from the documents it provided to CapCon, which makes it impossible to estimate the value of the stolen benefits. Police reports that contained relevant information show that the amounts stolen range from about $92 to more than $1,000.

Low-income Michiganders lost thousands of dollars in benefits that were spent mostly out of state in Arkansas, California, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Texas. The victims’ ages ranged from 30s to late 70s.

A 77-year-old lost $92 in benefits. One mother’s stolen benefits were meant for Thanksgiving dinner. She did not know of the loss until she tried to check out, according to another police report.

Card skimming is a problem throughout the nation, not only in Michigan, one police official noted in a report.

“I reviewed this incident report,” an officer wrote. “I am familiar with an uptick in these cases which is actually a national problem. I was aware that Investigator [Joseph] Adcock from (the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services) was taking all of these cases. I spoke with Investigator Adcock who requested that I forward him a copy of this report and to close it out on my end.”

Most victims didn’t know that someone had stolen their benefits until their cards were declined at the register. In most cases, the victim still had the card and claimed that no one else had had access to it. Once the benefits are loaded on a card, a criminal can quickly drain the account, often by going to multiple stores within 30 minutes.

Much of the SNAP fraud in Oakland County — 41 instances — was reported in March, April and May 2023. May 2023 saw 28 reports of theft, or nearly once for every day of the month.

A CapCon investigation influenced lawmakers to spent $17 million to upgrade the state’s SNAP cards security, which should stop skimming fraud. CapCon’s series of stories showed that SNAP fraud increased nearly 400% from 2023 to 2024.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General completed about 26,903 investigations throughout the state in 2023-24, according to research the department completed in response to a records request.

The state Human Services Department made 95 referrals to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or law enforcement in 2023, with another 91 referrals coming in 2024, according to the inspector general’s office.

The state of Michigan expects to finish the task of sending out upgraded benefits cards by August 2026.

Upgraded cards will help stop fraud, but criminals are using stolen identities, taking advantage of lagging analytics, and exploiting slow communications between states and the federal government in order to steal from the vulnerable, Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Special Services and Risk Solutions Government, told CapCon in an email.

“What these cases show is that SNAP fraud today is not a paperwork problem,” Talcove wrote. “It’s organized theft driven by stolen identities and compromised cards, often through skimming. Simply upgrading the card helps, but it doesn’t solve the underlying issue.”

Of Michigan’s roughly 9,700 SNAP retailers, about 5,800 are small convenience stores in which a significant portion of trafficking and skimming activity occurs because these shops typically lack the same controls as larger grocers, according to Talcove.

It’s hard to police that many retailers when there’s a ratio of about one retailer for every 151 SNAP recipients, or far more access points than necessary, Talcove wrote. Reducing that ratio to one retailer for every 400 recipients would still preserve access while reducing exposure to fraud, Talcove added.

“States and USDA need to move from a ‘pay-and-chase’ model to real-time prevention — using analytics to detect unusual behavior, like benefits being spent across multiple states, and stopping those transactions before they clear,” Talcove wrote. “At the same time, Michigan should consider targeted audits of high-risk retailers to ensure compliance and remove bad actors — especially where those stores are duplicative of nearby grocery and big-box options.

“The private sector does this every day in banking and credit cards. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be applying the same protections to safeguard benefits for vulnerable families.”

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication. The department administers the SNAP program, which is partially funded by the federal government.