The Justice Department said a SNAP fraud surge covers more than 40 defendants and nearly $42 million in food-stamp losses.

Wednesday's release mixes documents that are not at the same stage. Jorag Yaseen, Rami Kanaan, and Mercedes New are names on indictments. Mark Frisbie has already pleaded guilty, and Ana Patricia Escalante and Chantel LaShawn Peavy have already been sentenced. Fox's morning story said the announcement would be $40 million and more than 40 suspects, and it did not name them. The release that followed said nearly $42 million of a nearly $45 million total. The New York Post's "more than 40 counts" against New is the Post's number. The release listed four charge types and did not give a count.

The Justice Department, the Department of Agriculture, and the USDA Office of Inspector General on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2026, announced what the department called its first National USDA Benefits and Program Fraud Enforcement Surge. The release said that between Sept. 1 and Wednesday, the department's National Fraud Enforcement Division, 13 U.S. attorney's offices, and the Utah Attorney General's Office took action against more than 40 defendants whose alleged or proven schemes caused nearly $45 million in intended losses. Nearly $42 million of that figure is fraud against the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the release said, and another case is an attempt to defraud a USDA crop-insurance program. The New York Post reported that Vice President JD Vance and officials from Justice and Agriculture held a press conference in Cincinnati on Wednesday to put the cases in front of cameras. Fox News, in a story published Wednesday morning and attributed to a source familiar with the charges, reported that Vance would announce $40 million in fraud and more than 40 suspects. Forty million dollars and nearly $42 million are not the same figure, and Fox's story did not name the defendants the release later listed.

The largest indictment in the release is United States v. Jorag Yaseen and Rami Kanaan, Southern District of Ohio case 3:26-cr-00099-TMR, which the department put at about $29.7 million in intended loss. The release says a federal grand jury charged them in a scheme to run SNAP transactions through approved retail food stores they operated in Chicago. It alleges that from about February 2024 through April 2025, the defendants and others processed thousands of transactions using stolen EBT account information from Ohio and other states, that those transactions were made to look like sales of authorized food when no bona fide sale occurred, and that the processing generated interstate wires between Illinois and servers tied to Ohio's SNAP administration. It alleges that some of the proceeds were used to buy automobiles for use and shipment overseas. The counts listed are conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The release identifies three alleged wire transactions on March 4, 2024, on a stolen Ohio EBT card tied to a Greene County resident, totaling $1,243.46. The New York Post reported that Yaseen and Kanaan were indicted the same day Mercedes New was arrested in Las Vegas. The department's release did not date their indictment. An indictment is the charging document. It does not establish that the stores moved $29.7 million.

The release's next indictment is United States v. Mercedes New, Northern District of Georgia case 26-CR-473, which it put at $4.4 million in intended loss. It says a federal grand jury indicted New on Oct. 7 for criminal food stamp fraud, mail fraud, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft, and that he is also known as Shawty Dred. It says Georgia's Department of Human Services inspector general found in 2025 that phone numbers associated with New contacted the SNAP EBT phone system more than 9,000 times and reached more than 350 accounts. Transactions connected to him were then estimated at $1.8 million, the release says, about $635,000 of that at Shawty Dred LLC in Atlanta, a store it says he owned and that had been authorized to accept SNAP. It says East Point police arrested him at a Walmart in November 2025 for soliciting customers to buy SNAP EBT cards, seized 14 Georgia cards, and later linked more than 500 Georgia EBT cards to him. It says he was arrested in Las Vegas on Oct. 13. The New York Post reported he was indicted on more than 40 counts of food stamp fraud, mail fraud, and aggravated identity theft, and that the Las Vegas arrest was last Tuesday. The release listed four charge types and did not publish a count total. The Post also reported that Vance said at the Cincinnati conference, "SNAP exists to help hungry children eat; it does not exist to provide private jets to a guy like Shawty Dred." The written release does not mention a jet. The Post reported Attorney General Todd Blanche said there, "Two-hundred twenty thousand Americans could've eaten for the entire month of October if it were not for this $42 million in fraud." The release, which also identifies Blanche as attorney general, quotes him saying the schemes "siphoned millions from taxpayers and robbed struggling Americans of the benefits they depend on so fraudsters could use them for their own selfish purposes." One quote is what the Post reported from the conference. The other is the sentence in the release.

The same release includes cases that have already produced a plea or a sentence. It says Mark Frisbie pleaded guilty on Sept. 29 in the Middle District of Florida to submitting a false crop-insurance claim, admitting he underreported bell pepper and tomato sales from 2019 to 2024 and caused the government to pay $1,748,408 in indemnities it otherwise would not have paid. It says he also admitted defrauding the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program and the Emergency Relief Program, and agreed to pay $1,506,992.26 in restitution to the Farm Service Agency. It says Ana Patricia Escalante was sentenced on Sept. 9 in Oregon to 27 months in prison and $2.4 million in restitution as the leader of a crew that moved infant formula bought with stolen SNAP benefits. It says Kirk Deshaun Woodley pleaded guilty on Sept. 22 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, and that Chantel LaShawn Peavy was sentenced on Oct. 20 to 18 months on a conspiracy, in an Eastern District of Michigan case the release put at $1.1 million in intended loss and described as the use of personal information from more than 650 people. A plea and a sentence are outcomes already entered on those defendants. The Yaseen, Kanaan, and New indictments are accusations. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.