Dozens Arrested as U.S. Cracks Down on Food-Stamp Trafficking

Dozens of bartenders, grocers, suspected drug dealers and others were rounded up Friday on charges of trading cocaine and money for food stamps.

As a nationwide crackdown on food-stamp trafficking continues, law enforcement agents were moving to arrest 60 people in the area around Ocilla in south Georgia on charges that they sold crack and powdered cocaine for food stamps, Agriculture Department investigators said.

In Brownsville, Tex., an additional 20 people were being arrested on charges that they purchased food stamps for cash, at 50 cents on the dollar. Among those being sought were a grocery store owner and employee, along with workers in local taverns, restaurants and two auto repair shops.

The crackdown, set in motion by the Agriculture Department’s inspector general, Roger Viadero, also led to the arrest Friday of a Chicago grocery store owner on trafficking charges involving $1.3 million in food stamps.

Friday’s arrests mark a concerted effort by the Agriculture Department to root out fraud in the $27-billion-a-year food stamp program, the federal government’s largest welfare program. In the first seven weeks of the crackdown, 106 people have been arrested, indicted or convicted.