Vance Announces $42 Million SNAP Fraud Bust With 40-Plus Charged, Including Atlanta Rapper
Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that a federal anti-fraud task force has charged more than 40 people in schemes that drained about $42 million from SNAP food benefits, including an Atlanta rapper accused of building a $4.6 million fraud operation on stolen identities.
KENWOOD, Ohio — Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that a federal anti-fraud task force has charged more than 40 people in schemes that drained about $42 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the federal food aid program known as SNAP.
Speaking at the FBI field office in Kenwood, Ohio, Vance said the program was “one of the most important and sacred things that our tax dollars go to, making sure that our fellow citizens don’t go hungry at night.” He said the accused had decided “to commit fraud against these programs, who, quite literally, in this case, will steal from the mouths of hungry children in order to enrich themselves,” according to the Washington Examiner.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the schemes meant “two-hundred twenty thousand Americans could’ve eaten for the entire month of October if it were not for this $42 million in fraud,” according to the New York Post. Blanche said indictments had been returned against men and women in 13 districts over the past seven weeks.
The White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud said it has found more than $641 million in SNAP fraud since it began work last year, the Washington Examiner reported. The announcement came days after Trump launched a White House fraud whistleblower incentive program from the Oval Office that would pay people who accurately tip the government off to fraud, waste and abuse a 1% commission on the total amount of fraud.
A rapper, two grocers and the cases behind the numbers
Among the more than 40 defendants is Mercedes New, a 39-year-old Atlanta rapper and influencer known as Shawty Dred. Between January 2020 and July 2026, New allegedly created more than 350 fake accounts using stolen identities with Georgia’s Department of Human Services, obtained hundreds of fraudulent SNAP debit cards mailed to addresses across metro Atlanta, and then sold them for cash or ran them through his own company, Shawty Dred LLC, after registering it as a SNAP retailer, the Post reported.
Prosecutors indicted New earlier this month on 46 counts of mail fraud, 15 counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of food stamp fraud, in what authorities described as a $4.6 million scheme. While allegedly spending the money on vacations, clothing and jewelry, New taunted followers on Instagram and TikTok as “broke motherf–kers,” the Post reported. He was arrested last week in Las Vegas.
“SNAP exists to help hungry children eat; it does not exist to provide private jets to a guy like Shawty Dred,” Vance said, according to the Post. He said New had placed nearly 9,000 calls, pulling benefits spread across 350 accounts and collecting them to enrich himself.
Two other men, Jorag Yaseen and Rami Kanaan, were indicted in Ohio federal court for allegedly stealing almost $30 million in fake electronic benefit transactions through Chicago-area food stores, the Post reported. The pair’s alleged accomplices stole the EBT account information of thousands of Ohio SNAP participants and swiped it through point-of-sale devices at stores in Illinois.
Other cases in the seven-week enforcement surge included a $2.4 million scheme that used fraudulently obtained benefits to buy more than 124,000 pounds of baby formula and resell it on the black market, nearly $1.7 million in fake crop insurance claims to the Agriculture Department, and nearly $1 million in benefits allegedly stolen by Yemeni nationals in Ohio, Michigan and New York to pay for marijuana or trade EBT balances for cash, the Post reported.
How the task force says it caught them
USDA Inspector General John Walk joked that of the case against New, “there’s nothing ‘New’ under the sun,” the Post reported. Blanche said one victim had to take out a loan to put food on her children’s table after fraudsters drained her EBT account, and he vowed the enforcement effort would continue “for as long as it takes.”
Vance said New’s own social media posts had helped investigators. “Part of what helped us identify Shawty Dred is the guy’s posting Instagram videos, and we’re able to connect the money that he’s making with the money that he’s then using to go and buy seats on private jets and all these other things,” Vance said.
Reporting based on coverage by the Washington Examiner and the New York Post.
