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| Terror Suspect Accused of Food Stamp Scam | |
| 2004-07-08 | |
| A man suspected in Florida of having ties to an Islamic terrorist organization was arrested after an indictment accused him of making $1.6 million in phony food stamp transactions. Hatem Fariz, 31, pleaded innocent Wednesday to wire and mail fraud charges. Another hearing was set for Monday and prosecutors said they planned to ask that Fariz be held without bail. Prosecutors said Fariz defrauded the food stamp program five years ago at a store he owned in Chicago. Defense attorney Luis Galvan declined to comment on the charges. Fariz lives in Spring Hill, Fla., where he is free on $1.1 million bail while awaiting trial on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges in a separate case accusing him of being a member of a terrorist organization. He was arrested Wednesday at his mother's home near Chicago. According to the Chicago indictment, Fariz and his employees rang up transactions on customers' food stamp debit cards from May 1999 to December 2000. Under the indictment, the cardholders received cash instead of groceries, and Fariz collected a fee. "He used the ... card like an ATM machine, a high-priced ATM where you'd take a fee for trading for cash," said prosecutor James Barz. Prosecutors would not say how much of that money ended up in Fariz's pocket, but the store redeemed $1.6 million in electronic food stamp transactions while having only $149,000 in total food sales.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #8 Jeez this is a really old thread Mike. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-10-08 12:59:57 PM |
| #7 Hatem in more trouble ? Just because he distributed the goods in Spring Hill ? Just because his former employer lied to FBI about knowing him before hiring him ? Please leave poor misguided HATEM alone. |
| Posted by: Mike364108 2004-10-08 12:44:03 PM |
| #6 people with these kind of comments are clearly haten, go hate somewhere else suckers.... |
| Posted by: Anonymous5723 2004-07-13 12:05:34 AM |
| #5 A similar scheme is for owners of these little convenience stores to clip all the coupons from a stack of Sunday newspapers and redeem them. Example: 100 papers x $40 coupons X 52 weeks = $208,000 / yr. |
| Posted by: ed 2004-07-08 9:50:47 PM |
| #4 Convienience store owner makes a $1.1 mil bail? Wonder how much he charges for a pack of smokes when he's not running food stamp scams. More likely, wonder who his friends are? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-07-08 9:25:12 PM |
| #3 Fariz lives in Spring Hill, Fla., where he is free on $1.1 million bail while awaiting trial on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges in a separate case accusing him of being a member of a terrorist organization. Wouldn't it be a good idea to make all terrorism related charges, "no bail?" There seems to be an awfully high chance of flight to avoid prosecution, plus interdicting all communication between arrested terror suspects and their cohorts certainly seems like a really, really good idea. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-07-08 8:36:55 PM |
| #2 Add Elashi to the growing list of CAIR affiliates convicted or awaiting trial/deportation under terrorist related and fraud charges, most notably, Ismail Royer, Bassam Khafegi, see www.danielpipes.org website for the entire list and updates regarding the CAIR convictions and arrests. |
| Posted by: jawa 2004-07-08 7:21:15 PM |
| #1 Jeezzzz, Spring Hill 'eh? I wonder if it's the original 7/11 at the entrance of the town/60's eyesore. Mackel Brothers or was it Arvida? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-07-08 3:44:35 PM |