USDA Watchdog Tells Congress SNAP Fraud Funds Terrorist Networks, Transnational Crime

The Agriculture Department's inspector general warned Congress that proceeds from fraud in the roughly $100 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have flowed to individuals linked to terrorist groups, foreign adversary nations, and transnational criminal organizations. USDA Inspector General John Walk delivered that testimony Thursday before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, describing increasingly sophisticated schemes that strip benefits from low-income recipients while routing federal dollars into organized crime. The hearing marked the latest Republican-led push to overhaul oversight of the nation's food stamp program.

$3 Billion in Suspected Fraud, Thousands of Suspect Recipients

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said USDA officials have already identified roughly $3 billion in potential fraud and waste by analyzing data submitted by participating states. His figures included benefits allegedly sent to 186,000 deceased individuals, 442,000 applicants with fraudulent Social Security numbers, and hundreds of thousands of duplicate recipients logged across state systems. Burchett argued that 21 states have declined to share SNAP enrollment data with the federal government, a gap he said allows individuals to collect benefits simultaneously from multiple states.

Walk echoed the concern, testifying that limited access to state recipient data makes it difficult to detect fraud before taxpayer dollars are spent. "We cannot pay and chase our way to stopping SNAP fraud," he told the subcommittee. "We need to guard the front door."

EBT Skimming, Drug Trafficking, and Firearms

Walk detailed the mechanics of the fraud, warning that criminals can install electronic benefit transfer card skimming devices in as little as seven seconds, cloning cards and draining accounts the moment monthly deposits arrive. He recounted speaking this week with a New York father of five whose SNAP benefits were stolen through card skimming, describing it as representative of a pattern of theft from working families.

A Southern California investigation Walk highlighted showed SNAP benefits allegedly exchanged for cash and crack cocaine, with gang members then using those proceeds to purchase firearms. Walk repeated the sequence for emphasis: federal nutrition dollars, he said, used to buy drugs and guns.

Democrats Urge Caution on Scope

While Republicans pressed for expanded state data-sharing and tighter federal controls, Democrats cautioned that the framing of the hearing risked conflating administrative errors with intentional fraud. Gina Plata-Nino, director of SNAP policy and advocacy at the Food Research and Action Center, testified that organized theft of EBT benefits is a genuine problem but warned lawmakers against using it to justify cuts to eligible recipients. "Program integrity and food access are not competing goals," she told the subcommittee.

Walk framed the stakes in moral terms as well as fiscal ones. "SNAP fraud is a reprehensible crime that squanders the compassion of American taxpayers who fund the program and robs from those low-income Americans who qualify for SNAP benefits to feed themselves and their families," he testified. The Trump administration has made fraud elimination across federal benefit programs a stated priority, and Thursday's hearing signaled that SNAP, as one of the government's largest domestic spending lines, remains near the center of that effort.