While Wall Street has had its generous Federal Reserve sponsor for the past 8 years, literally printing money out of thin air, showering banks with risk-free profits and making the rich richer beyond their wildest dreams (although ever since the end of QE the pump has run dry), the rest of the US population was largely left to fend for itself. In the process, just as Wall Street demonstrated unprecedented creativity to come up with fraud that will make one's head spin (if never lead to an actual prison sentence), so did the "99%", the only difference being, of course, that for the mere mortals jail time is an all too certain outcome as are dramatic police raids.
This is the story of one such extremely creative if abhorrent crime, and raid, involving what may have been the biggest food-stamp crime ring bust in history.
As CSP reports, in Operation Stampede, what is being called the largest food-stamp trafficking takedown in history in terms of financial loss, law enforcement agencies filed federal charges last week against 22 Florida store owners or operators, including one convenience-store owner, in connection with schemes to illegally redeem food-stamp benefits for cash. Allegedly, the defendants fraudulently obtained more than $13 million dollars in EBT deposits for transactions in which the stores did not provide food.




















