A couple of steaks shoplifted at a Gardendale Walmart three months ago led to the biggest food stamp fraud investigation in Jefferson County's history, and launched 11 simultaneous raids this morning at convenience stores countywide.
Led by the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, teams of law enforcement officers met at 5 a.m. for a briefing and then fanned out across the county beginning at 6:50 a.m. The officers and agents were armed with 242 arrest warrants and plans to arrest 17 suspects.
All 17 suspects were in custody by mid-morning, and investigators already today have filed for forfeiture and condemnation of those 11 stores, which totals more than $1 million in assets.
"This is huge for us,'' said Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls.
The massive probe, dubbed Operation T-bone, targeted those they say have been cheating the food stamp system to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars and sending at least some of the profits via wire transfer to Yemen.
The District Attorney's Office, the FBI, the Gardendale Police Department, the USDA, the Alabama Department of Human Resources and the Secret Service all worked together on the investigation. Birmingham police, the U.S. Marshals, the Internal Revenue Service, Homeland Security Investigations, Walmart Global Operations, Hoover police, Pelham police, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office SWAT team and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency helped with today's raid in a specially-formed task force.
At the heart of the operation are Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, a government-issued debit card that replaced food stamps. There are more than 900,000 people who get government assistance through the EBT card in Alabama each year, and they are allowed to use the cards for food, non-alcoholic beverages, and other basic needs, mostly through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The investigation began in February when Gardendale police arrested a man for shoplifting steaks and some other items at Walmart in that city. When they interviewed the suspect, he said he was boosting the items to give to two convenience stores, and he named the stores, authorities said.
Investigators contacted Walmart's Global Investigations Unit in an effort to let them know they would like to attempt to sell property represented to be stolen to those stores, but when they told Walmart the nature of their probe, they learned the conglomerate was already investigating those two convenience stores for EBT fraud. Simply put, they learned, the store owners and managers were using EBT cards that did not belong to them to buy goods in bulk to sell at their stores.
Falls said they learned owners of numerous convenience stores in the Birmingham area have been buying EBT cards from those who have been issued the cards for roughly 50 cents on the dollar. In other words, if someone had $150 on their EBT card, the store owners and managers would buy those cards for $75.
The government reloads money onto those EBT cards monthly. Once the store owners and managers bought the cards, they would then go to a wholesaler where they would buy goods and bring them back to their stores to sell at a further inflated price. In return, the person who sold their EBT card now had cash to buy items not allowed to be purchased under the government system, such as alcohol, tobacco and drugs.
"They're selling their cards to get those things,'' Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Raulston said.
"Part of the problem, in my opinion, is now they don't have their food stamps card so they don't have the money to take care of their families or themselves,'' Raulston said. "I think it's a huge cycle of remaining impoverished."
"One of the biggest issues is they're marking up these items in the stores and charging more than what retailers would charge and they're in the middle of food deserts with no transportation so they don't have a lot of options,'' Raulston said. "It's not only the EBT card beneficiaries, but you've got the working poor paying marked up prices. They're getting ripped off."
How big is the problem? "It is enormous. It is pervasive,'' Raulston said. "We actually had to cut off the number we were going to prosecute this round, and this will be an ongoing investigation and prosecution for our office."
"It's apparently rampant,'' she said. "If you just wander into the community and say something about a beneficiary card, someone will sell you one. It's everywhere."
Those arrested in today's raids are: Jowher Almnasoob, Abdulrahman Alqublani, Ismail Hassan Elnaham, Saleh Yahya Rowaid, Ramzi Jowher Ali Almansoob, Mujahed Jowher Ali Almansoob, Bashir Abosaleh Mohamed, Fouad Zamzami, Muneer Zindani, Sufyan Saleh, Mansoor Almansoob, Audrey Morris, Jerry Brown, Keith Lee Lucas, Travis Wayne Holmes, Murad Nooruddin and Mable Olympia Kirksey.
They were arrested on charges including public assistance fraud, fraudulent use of a credit card and theft of property, which are felonies. All of those arrested are U.S. citizens, Falls said.
The following stores were raided and now will be subject to forfeiture and condemnation: Graymont Grocery on Graymont Avenue; R&S Supermarket, 326 6th Ave. South; Nana's Supermarket, 400 1st Street South; 3rd Avenue Package, 1501 3rd Ave. West; Bessemer Market, 2931 Dartmouth Avenue; 40th Street Grocery, 1200 40th Street; Christy's Texaco, 201 6th Ave. S.W.; Uptown Grocery, 1531 12th Court North; Triple M Food Mart, 1546 FL Shuttlesworth Drive; R&F Inc. Convenience Store, 5612 1st Ave. South; and Munchies-Avondale, 4100 5th Ave. South.
Falls late in 2014 announced the formation of a new team in his office to concentrate on white-collar crime and public corruption in the Birmingham area. His motivation: a jump in thefts and fraud schemes by workers in the government and private sectors.
Today's raids were the culmination of the unit's largest investigation to date. "This is the first time since I've been district attorney,'' Falls said, "that we've been involved from the beginning in all aspects of the investigation.''
Chris Clarke, a former Gardendale detective who is now an investigator with the district attorney's office, led the investigation in this case. "This is the largest cooperative investigation I have ever been a part of,'' Clark said. "Every agency did anything they could to help and we look forward to continuing this effort into the future."
This story was updated at 3:10 p.m. to reflect the fact that 11 stores were raided Wednesday.