Food stamps

It isn't unusual to hear people talking about routinely providing beneficiaries with a food voucher instead of cash, to ensure that children actually get fed. I point out that food stamps can also be manipulated and used as black market currency. Illinois, US has tried to get around this by using electronic cards regularly credited with funds to be used only at authorised foodstores. But that is still being ripped off.

The latest scam works like this:

A welfare recipient goes to a store with a Link card credited by the government with a dollar amount for groceries -- say, $100. The store clerk swipes the card through a government computer and takes credit for $100 in phony food sales. Then, the clerk hands $70 to the welfare recipient, keeping the rest as profit.

Food-stamp benefits can be legally used only to buy "food or food products for human consumption, plus seeds and plants for use in home gardens to produce food," according to the USDA.

But over and over, federal authorities have watched food-stamp recipients, who find out about crooked stores through word of mouth, use illegal cash from their Link cards to feed their drug habits, not their families.

Baker said the fraud is especially insidious because the family members of Link cardholders often wind up having to stand in line at food pantries for handouts because the Link benefits have been squandered on drugs.

And, just to add insult to injury, it appears that some of the ripped off funds are going to terrorist organisations.