Two men from the greater Chicago area recently were arrested and charged for allegedly being part of a criminal organization that stole and misused food stamp card account information from thousands of program beneficiaries in Ohio.
The defendants and others are accused of stealing nearly $30 million in taxpayer-funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (formerly called food stamps), including about $1.8 million from Ohio accounts, according to court documents. Multiple transactions involved stolen account information from a beneficiary in Greene County, records show.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said a large amount of fraud in the safety net program in the past involved out-of-state retailers and online providers. The agency identified nearly 56,000 suspicious out-of-state SNAP transactions between March 2025 and May 2026.
But the state says its efforts to crack down on SNAP fraud appear to be working because the agency only recorded a single suspicious out-of-state SNAP transaction from mid-August through the end of September.
Since May, ODJFS has required people who receive food assistance benefits to “unlock” their electronic payment cards to make online or out-of-state purchases.
“Criminals from other states and online continue to prey on vulnerable Ohioans who rely on food assistance to feed their families,” ODJFS Director Matt Damschroder said in a statement earlier this year. “A vast majority of cardholders do not use their benefits online or out-of-state. And even if they might need to, manually unlocking your card is fast and straightforward.”
A local convenience store advertises that it accepts food stamps, which are now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP). Cornelius Frolik / Staff
Cornelius Frolik / Staff
$30 million fraud case
Jorag Yaseen, 38, and Rami Kanaan, 45, were arrested last month and charged in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. Yaseen lives in northwest Indiana near the Illinois border, and Kanaan also lives in the greater Chicago area.
Between February 2024 and April 2025 in southern Ohio and elsewhere, Yaseen, Kanaan and others fraudulently obtained and processed for payment account information from thousands of stolen SNAP electronic benefit cards from beneficiaries in Ohio and other states, according to the criminal indictment in federal district court.
SNAP recipients receive payment cards that function much like traditional bank or debit cards. Recipients scan or swipe their cards at participating retailers to redeem their food benefits and pay for program-eligible items.
SNAP is a federal program and benefit cards can be used at approved retailers anywhere in the country.
Authorities say Yaseen and Kanaan were part of a criminal network that fraudulently redeemed $29.7 million in SNAP benefits at 10 different stores, including a couple they owned and operated in Chicago, Illinois. The suspects are naturalized U.S. citizens who were born in Jordan, and a couple of unindicted co-conspirators in the case recently fled overseas back to Jordan, officials said. Authorities are seeking detention for both suspects, claiming they are flight risks.
About $1.8 million of the benefits that were illegally redeemed were from Ohio SNAP accounts, and the defendants and other suspects allegedly were responsible for thousands of wire transmissions between the state of Illinois and ODJFS servers in southern Ohio, says court documents filed by federal prosecutors.
The scheme victimized thousands of people, according to court records, which also indicate that at least several of the fraudulent transactions involved stolen account information from a SNAP recipient in Greene County.
Prosecutors say the case remains under investigation and there may be additional victims, plus the total value of the losses could be greater than current estimates. The defendants could face 20 years or more in prison.
Authorities last month also charged six people in Ohio for allegedly exchanging SNAP benefit cards for cash, marijuana and other ineligible items at a gas station in Euclid, a city near Cleveland. Federal officials say they are trying to crack down on SNAP fraud.
The state of Ohio distributes about $263 million in SNAP benefits every month to about 1.4 million Ohioans. About 175,800 people in Butler, Champaign, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery and Warren counties receive SNAP benefits, worth about $30 million every month, state data shows.
A store in Dayton advertises that it accepts EBT, which is short for Electronic Benefits Transfer. EBT cards are loaded with and used to redeem Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which were formerly called food stamps. Cornelius Frolik / Staff
Cornelius Frolik / Staff
State changes
ODJFS’ SNAP fraud analytics team identified nearly 56,000 suspicious out-of-state transactions that took place between March 2025 and May 2026, according to Bill Teets, an ODJFS spokesperson. He said these questionable out-of-state transactions involved 12,000 Ohio electronic benefit card accounts and more than $6.3 million in benefit redemptions.
The state says a data analysis of card usage, purchasing trends and reports of benefit “skimming” found that SNAP fraud historically involved out-of-state retailers and online providers. Skimming occurs when criminals attach a device to retailers’ card readers that covertly capture SNAP card information.
According to ODJFS, the states that accounted for the largest shares of suspicious Ohio SNAP benefit transactions were Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois and New Jersey. The agency said most suspicious transactions occurred online and after midnight.
But back in May the state made a change so that SNAP cards now have a default setting that blocks “high-risk” transactions. This requires cardholders to unlock their cards to make out-of-state or online purchases.
ODJFS officials say this feature is quite similar to fraud protection measures offered with some credit cards.
To make a purchase, cardholders open a mobile app, unlock their accounts and swipe their cards. The cards then re-lock immediately or after a set period of time, between 30 to 90 minutes. Cardholders can disable the locking feature, but the state highly recommends beneficiaries refrain from doing this.
ODJFS Director Damschroder said the new safety measure “dramatically” reduces the risk of theft. The state agency says it only identified two incidents of suspicious SNAP transaction activity in September — and one of the them took place in Ohio (the other was out of state).
Jorag Yaseen owned and operated a small retail food store known as Englewood Food Wholesale Market in Chicago, Illinois. Federal authorities claim that Yaseen was part of a criminal network that redeemed more than $7.7 million worth of stolen and unauthorized food stamp benefits at this store, including $1.2 million in benefits from Ohio. Contributed
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Local reaction
Beth Rubin, director of the Greene County Department of Job and Family Services, said her agency was not aware of the large-scale fraud case with Ohio and Illinois connections before details were released to the public.
She said provider fraud usually is investigated by state law enforcement, while counties usually investigate fraud involving individual recipients. Rubin said her agency looks for patterns of suspicious activities and investigates complaints when recipients may be misrepresenting their situations in order to receive benefits.
“If our investigation uncovers discrepancies, the recipients may owe back money for overpayments, and they are subject to benefit disqualification for violating the SNAP program,” she said. “We also report complaints of vendor fraud to the authorities.”
According to Rubin, Ohio has done a good job of sharing information on how to protect benefits by locking cards, changing personal identification numbers and taking other basic measures.
But she and other officials stress that the SNAP program provides a lifeline for many low-income and vulnerable families, children, seniors and other Ohioans who otherwise would have a hard time putting food on the table.
“It’s important to know that most SNAP recipients are truthful in applying for and receiving needed benefits,” she said. “When there are allegations of fraud, we take them seriously to uphold the public’s trust in taxpayer-funded programs and to ensure programs remain available to those who are truly in need.”
ODJFS also recently announced that Ohio counties can apply for federal funding to help investigate and prosecute food stamp fraud.
The program allows county agencies that administer the SNAP program to partner with local law enforcement and prosecutors on cases. The federal government will reimburse a quarter of certain costs related to arrests and fraud prosecutions, personnel or equipment and training or court filing fees.
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