A South Side grocery clerk admitted to a Chicago cop that he was ripping off Illinois’ federally funded food stamp program, federal authorities say.
“I know and you know there’s something illegal going on,” the cop said.
The clerk, Said Qreini, allegedly responded, “Some people are getting cash back.”
“Off of food stamps,” the officer said.
“Yeah,” Qreini allegedly said.
Despite that conversation — recorded on the officer’s body camera on Sept. 7, 2021, inside Maya Superstore at 6852 S. Ashland Ave. in West Englewood — Qreini continued to scam the food stamp program, according to a federal complaint charging him with fraud.
Federal investigators and undercover Chicago cops said they documented Qreini fleecing the program five times between December 2021 and July 2023.
Qreini, carrying $10,000 in cash, was arrested July 27 at O’Hare Airport while boarding a plane for Istanbul, Turkey, according to the complaint. The previous day, agents had carried out a search warrant at Maya Superstore.
The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program, led the investigation, which also involved the IRS, the Chicago Police Department and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations.
Maya Superstore didn’t have a government-authorized machine to process food stamps, but Qreini was able to call someone else to make the transactions, according to the complaint.
It said customers would come to the store, buy groceries and ask for cash back, which is prohibited under the federal food stamp program, called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
In one instance, on Dec. 16, 2021, an undercover Chicago cop asked Qreini for $20 and handed over an Illinois Link food stamp card, according to the complaint, which said Qreini got on his phone and transferred $42.99 in food stamp proceeds from the card to the unnamed person with access to a Link machine.
The complaint said Qreini gave the officer $20 along with the pastries and drinks the cop ordered — and charged $22.99 for the groceries, grossly overstating their value to make an illegal profit.
The complaint doesn’t say how much money Qreini is suspected of stealing from the food stamp program.
“He is innocent until proven guilty,” his lawyer Brunell Donald-Kyei said.
Over prosecutors’ objections, Qreini has been released in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Authorities say food stamp fraud allows people to get quick cash to buy drugs by misusing the program, which is designed to help families keep healthy food on the table. In a report a decade ago, the Congressional Research Service said retailers “trafficked” about 1.5% of redeemed food stamp benefits. This year, $111 billion is budgeted for the program, which supports 43.5 million people a month.
Illinois’ electronic food stamp program — called Link — was launched in 1997 to combat rampant fraud in the paper food stamp program. The stamps were often used illegally, as black-market currency, to buy drugs. But cheaters quickly found a way to steal from the new, electronic food stamp system, too.
According to the USDA’s inspector general’s office, prosecutors across the country have filed cases against store clerks suspected of defrauding the program in recent years.
