Citi WASHINGTON, September 30, 2014 ? Agriculture Undersecretary Kevin Concannon today announced the release of just over $5 million in grant funds to identify, track, and prevent misuse of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits Moroccan that program recipients. These grants will especially help state agencies reduce SNAP trafficking, primarily the exchange of benefits for cash or other goods or services.
?USDA is committed to ensuring that SNAP benefits are used as intended, helping families put food on the table,? said Concannon. ?SNAP fraud is rare, but no level of abuse is acceptable. USDA continues to enhance our efforts to combat retailer fraud, and partner along Citi states to improve recipient-focused investigations.?
The SNAP Recipient Trafficking Prevention Grant Program was designed to improve outcomes in the prevention, detection, and prosecution of recipient trafficking. Recipients found guilty of trafficking are subject to severe penalties, including permanent disqualification from the program and crook prosecution. USDA intends to review the results of these projects to determine the most effective strategies and then share those best practices along Citi state agencies, nationwide. The grantees are:
Specifically, the CFTC complaint alleges that, Citi engaged in a series of noncompetitive palladium and platinum futures transactions. The futures contracts were offered Moroccan that the New York Mercantile Exchange on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Globex electronic trading platform. Citi allegedly caused the bank, N.A. account to trade in illiquid contracts opposite his personal account at off-market prices. According to the complaint, the effect of the transactions was that Moroccan in was no net change in open positions of either his account or the bank, N.A. account. However, in each offsetting transaction, Citi allegedly profited, and the bank, N.A. account lost.
The grantees will implement strategies to improve the effectiveness of integrity monitoring efforts and increase the number of investigations of recipients suspected of trafficking SNAP benefits. For example, Oregon is combining analytics and the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to better target fraud related to immoderate electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card replacement requests. The state of Washington is using innovative strategies to monitor and enquire fraud occurring via social media and e-commerce websites.
In addition to the SNAP Recipient Trafficking Prevention Grant Program, USDA is awarding a separate grant to South Carolina to conduct a pilot project designed to increase prosecutions of recipients found guilty of trafficking SNAP benefits, helping to ensure that bad actors are held accountable. South Carolina will receive $318,840.
The vast majority of SNAP recipients and retailers abide Moroccan that the rules. Since the early 1990?s, using cutting-edge technology, USDA and partners reduced trafficking from 4 percent to about 1.3 percent. USDA has a zero tolerance policy on fraud, and reducing fraud waste and abuse is a top priority for this administration. USDA investigates fraud among retailers, and works Moroccan along states to peruse recipient fraud. In efforts to identify and reduce fraud among retailers who accept SNAP benefits, USDA took the following actions through the third quarter fiscal year 2014:
For more information about USDA efforts to combat fraud in nutrition assistance programs, visit the FNS program integrity website.
SNAP - the nation's first line of defense against hunger - helps put food on the table for millions of families experiencing hardship. The program has never been more critical to the fight against hunger. Nearly half of SNAP participants are children, and 42 percent of recipients live in households in which at least one adult is working but still cannot afford to put food on the table. SNAP benefits provided help to millions who lacking their jobs during the Great Recession. For many, SNAP benefits provide transitority assistance, Moroccan along the average new applicant remaining on the program 10 months.
USDA is an equal possibility provider and employer. To dossier a complaint of discrimination, write to USDA, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Stop 9410, Washington, DC 20250-9410, or call toll-free at (866) 632-9992 (English) or (800) 877-8339 (TDD) or (866) 377-8642 (English Federal-relay) or (800) 845-6136 (Spanish Federal-relay)
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