CLEVELAND — A Cuyahoga County judge issued an arrest warrant Monday for a New York man accused of stealing food-stamp benefits from Ohio families – and using a taxpayer-funded program as a personal piggy bank.
Hafedh Al Gahim is facing four felony charges in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. The Ohio Investigative Unit says he and his company, Buffalo Discount Corp., took more than $125,000 from Ohio SNAP, or food-stamp, recipients.
It’s the first time an out-of-state retailer has been charged with food stamp fraud in Ohio, where EBT cardholders have lost more than $14.8 million to thieves over the last two years.
RELATED: Thieves stole his SNAP benefits. Then they took his federal reimbursement, too.
Investigators say Al Gahim turned public benefits into cash, which he used to pay for “personal expenses, dining and leisure activities,” according to a January news release.
The Ohio Investigative Unit followed up on more than 370 suspicious transactions that took place at a corner store in Brooklyn, New York, in May and June of 2023. The sketchy purchases were relatively large – as high as $800 each – and happened every 30 to 45 seconds.
Late last year, a Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted Al Gahim and his business on charges of theft, illegal use of EBT, money laundering and telecommunications fraud.
On Monday morning, Al Gahim didn’t show up for his arraignment, the initial hearing where a defendant is formally charged with crimes. So a judge issued a warrant that authorizes any law enforcement agency to arrest and hold Al Gahim until he appears in court.
News 5 tried to contact Al Gahim but didn’t hear back from him.
On Monday, the prosecutor’s office declined to discuss the case. But in an early January news release, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said his office would hold Al Gahim accountable.
“We’re really happy that Cuyahoga County is trying to lead the way and show that prosecution is possible,” said Rachel Cahill, a SNAP policy expert who works as a visiting fellow at the Center for Community Solutions, a nonpartisan think tank in Cleveland.
She said prosecutors often are reluctant to take up SNAP theft cases.
“You’ll hear prosecutors say ‘It was only 100 bucks. Or it was only 500 bucks. We’ve got bigger cases.’ … That’s really frustrating too,” Cahill said. “Because we feel like if there was more aggressive prosecution, we might have seen more of a change. The total dollars being lost isn’t huge. But to that person, if that’s your food budget for the whole month, it’s a huge impact.”
Tony DeNardis knows that firsthand. In December, his monthly food stamp payment disappeared. He was getting ready to celebrate Christmas with family and friends when he learned that he only had $2 left in his account.
“I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what happened,” he said.
He called the customer service number from his Ohio Direction Card and found out that the last transaction on his account was for almost $300 at a New York deli.
“And I was like Brooklyn, New York? I’m in Cleveland,” he said, laughing.
DeNardis wandered over to talk to a News 5 reporter and photographer outside the Justice Center on Monday. He was surprised to hear about the anticlimactic arraignment upstairs.
“God help them as far as their karma goes,” he said of the criminals who are stealing SNAP benefits across the country.
The U.S. Secret Service and other agencies are chasing down sophisticated thieves who use card-skimming devices, tiny cameras and other gadgets to capture card numbers and PINS. EBT cards are particularly vulnerable to fraud because they only have magnetic stripes – not the embedded security chips that are ubiquitous on credit and debit cards.
Criminals use the stolen information to create replica cards. In some cases, they make fake purchases using payment terminals tied to bodegas or other retailers. In other cases, they buy real goods – like baby formula, energy drinks and other shelf-stable items – that can be resold on the black market.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services has been warning shoppers to carefully inspect payment terminals at stores, change their PINs often and check their balances regularly. EBT cardholders can lock and unlock their cards to prevent theft by using an app called Connect EBT.
“We hope that we’ll see more prosecutions, and more getting to the heart of the issue,” said Cahill, who believes a large transaction or rapid-fire series of transactions in New York using an Ohio EBT card should immediately get flagged by the federal government.
“We know what the solutions are,” she added. “It just needs to be a priority. And up to this point, it hasn’t been a priority.”
