[www.macon.com] A Wilkinson County man has pleaded guilty in what authorities said was the largest food stamp fraud investigation in Georgia's history.Elbert Eugene Shinholster, the owner of Shinholster's Grocery and Meat Market in Irwinton, pleaded guilty to charges against him in U.S. District Court on Monday. Authorities said the food stamp fraud and money laundering charges involved a $4.6 million scam.
The Irwinton store was the target of an investigation earlier this year along with a McIntyre convenience store.
The probe, dubbed Operation Handout, uncovered the state's largest food stamp fraud in terms of monetary loss to state taxpayers, said Ravae Graham, a Georgia Department of Human Services spokeswoman.
Nationwide, 230,000 retailers participate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food stamp program. In 2010, the USDA conducted 5,000 undercover investigations of participating stores, and 14,000 stores were put on a watch list, said Aaron Lavallee, a USDA front man.
In a plea agreement filed in court this week, Shinholster admitted that he defrauded the food stamp program of more than $4.68 million during a five-year period by conspiring with nearly 2,000 food stamp recipients.
Food stamp recipients receive an allotted amount of money monthly on an electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, card to buy food from authorized stores. Shinholster's store had been an authorized store since 1990.
Between June 2006 and March 2011, food stamp recipients would tell Shinholster or his employee how much cash they wanted in exchange for their food stamps, according to court records. On each occasion, the recipient's card would then be debited as though the person had bought food, but they received a cash payment instead. In exchange, the store also debited 30 percent of that amount from the card as a kind of interest or courtesy charge.
"Courtesy charge"? The loan sharks call it viggorish. And they don't even charge that much.