Panoramic view of the MDHHS SNAP program fraud.

https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/news/93-oakland-county-residents-reported-snap-fraud-to-sheriffs-office-in-2023

93 Oakland County residents reported SNAP fraud to sheriff’s office in 2023

State investigated 26,903 allegations of SNAP fraud in 2023 and 2024

Scott McClallen   |   June 1, 2026

More than 90 low-income residents of Oakland County reported to the county sheriff in 2023 that their food stamp benefits had been stolen, according to 365 pages of police reports Michigan Capitol Confidential obtained through a records request.

Criminals stole most of those benefits from the 93 victims by placing a skimmer at point-of-sale machines at gas stations, liquor stores and grocery stores. The fraudsters copy information from benefit cards, clone the cards, and then sell the information on the dark web or social media.

Ten police reports said the stolen benefits were spent at a Save-A-Lot store in Pontiac. The Oakland County Sheriff’s office tried to redact all the dollar amounts from the documents it provided to CapCon, which makes it impossible to estimate the value of the stolen benefits. Police reports that contained relevant information show that the amounts stolen range from about $92 to more than $1,000.

Low-income Michiganders lost thousands of dollars in benefits that were spent mostly out of state in Arkansas, California, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Texas. The victims’ ages ranged from 30s to late 70s.

A 77-year-old lost $92 in benefits. One mother’s stolen benefits were meant for Thanksgiving dinner. She did not know of the loss until she tried to check out, according to another police report.

Card skimming is a problem throughout the nation, not only in Michigan, one police official noted in a report.

“I reviewed this incident report,” an officer wrote. “I am familiar with an uptick in these cases which is actually a national problem. I was aware that Investigator [Joseph] Adcock from (the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services) was taking all of these cases. I spoke with Investigator Adcock who requested that I forward him a copy of this report and to close it out on my end.”

Most victims didn’t know that someone had stolen their benefits until their cards were declined at the register. In most cases, the victim still had the card and claimed that no one else had had access to it. Once the benefits are loaded on a card, a criminal can quickly drain the account, often by going to multiple stores within 30 minutes.

Much of the SNAP fraud in Oakland County — 41 instances — was reported in March, April and May 2023. May 2023 saw 28 reports of theft, or nearly once for every day of the month.

A CapCon investigation influenced lawmakers to spend $17 million to upgrade the state’s SNAP cards security, which should stop skimming fraud. CapCon’s series of stories showed that SNAP fraud increased nearly 400% from 2023 to 2024.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General completed about 26,903 investigations throughout the state in 2023-24, according to research the department completed in response to a records request.

The state Human Services Department made 95 referrals to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or law enforcement in 2023, with another 91 referrals coming in 2024, according to the inspector general’s office.

The state of Michigan expects to finish the task of sending out upgraded benefits cards by August 2026.

Upgraded cards will help stop fraud, but criminals are using stolen identities, taking advantage of lagging analytics, and exploiting slow communications between states and the federal government in order to steal from the vulnerable, Haywood Talcove, CEO of LexisNexis Special Services and Risk Solutions Government, told CapCon in an email.

“What these cases show is that SNAP fraud today is not a paperwork problem,” Talcove wrote. “It’s organized theft driven by stolen identities and compromised cards, often through skimming. Simply upgrading the card helps, but it doesn’t solve the underlying issue.”

Of Michigan’s roughly 9,700 SNAP retailers, about 5,800 are small convenience stores in which a significant portion of trafficking and skimming activity occurs because these shops typically lack the same controls as larger grocers, according to Talcove.

It’s hard to police that many retailers when there’s a ratio of about one retailer for every 151 SNAP recipients, or far more access points than necessary, Talcove wrote. Reducing that ratio to one retailer for every 400 recipients would still preserve access while reducing exposure to fraud, Talcove added.

“States and USDA need to move from a ‘pay-and-chase’ model to real-time prevention — using analytics to detect unusual behavior, like benefits being spent across multiple states, and stopping those transactions before they clear,” Talcove wrote. “At the same time, Michigan should consider targeted audits of high-risk retailers to ensure compliance and remove bad actors — especially where those stores are duplicative of nearby grocery and big-box options.

“The private sector does this every day in banking and credit cards. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be applying the same protections to safeguard benefits for vulnerable families.”

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication. The department administers the SNAP program, which is partially funded by the federal government.

Scott McClallen just quantified Michigan's out-of-state SNAP problem.

Published by Real Clear Politics.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/06/20/blue_states_feed_taxpayers_to_food-stamp_wolves.html

Blue States Feed Taxpayers to Food-Stamp Wolves

Scott McClallen    |    June 20, 2026

President Trump has put states on the hook for waste, fraud, and abuse in the nation’s food stamps, known officially as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Landmark legislation signed by the president last year requires the states to pay a share of the program’s costs if more than 6% of their food-stamp outlays are spent in error. States controlled by Democrats are, by and large, the worst offenders. For anyone who has followed the burgeoning and massive welfare fraud scandals in Minnesota and California, this trend is no surprise. And if my home state of Michigan is any indication, these deep blue states aren’t nearly as serious as they should be about rooting out fraud and protecting taxpayers.

That’s my conclusion after digging into food stamp fraud in Michigan. Under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the state refuses to share food-stamp data with the Trump administration, so I sought information through public-records requests. I discovered that the state has tolerated the blatant abuse of this taxpayer-funded program by people who don’t even live in Michigan.

According to state and local records, over the past three years, Michigan has paid more than $4 million in food-stamp funding to people with out-of-state addresses. State law requires food-stamp recipients to live in the state, for obvious reasons. It’s one thing to let Michigan residents use their food-stamps across state lines – many people live near the borders with Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin. It’s another thing entirely to pay money to people who don’t even live in Michigan.

Michigan officials have known about this problem for years, yet they’ve allowed this theft of government services to grow worse over time. In 2024, the state sent $1.6 million to out-of-state addresses, rising to $1.9 million in 2025. Last year, Michigan sent this money to 3,177 out-of-state addresses. Based on data from the first three months of this year, that number should reach 3,700 by the end of 2026.

In other words, Michigan food-stamp fraud is going in the wrong direction – despite the new federal law that incentivizes the state to right-size the program. Nearly 10% of all food-stamp funding in Michigan is spent in error, and without a change in direction, state taxpayers will be forced to cover $300 million of the program’s funding over the next year and a half. An obvious way to lower the state’s error rate would be to stop sending food stamp money out of state.

But Michigan has made no meaningful moves in that direction. The state is spending $16 million to upgrade the debit cards that food-stamp recipients use, which means people outside the state will simply get better cards when they should get no cards. State officials also tout a new $30 million splurge to reduce erroneous spending, but through records requests, I’ve found that much of this money is going to state ad campaigns and private political consultants.

These efforts may reduce fraud at the margins, but what Michigan really needs is better monitoring and enforcement for out-of-state spending. On June 3, the Republicans who control the state House of Representatives passed a bill to that effect. The legislation would suspend a food-stamp account if it’s used out-of-state for more than 90 consecutive days. This is a basic anti-fraud measure, yet there’s no indication that the Democrat-controlled Senate has any intention of taking it up. Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, a Democrat from Grand Rapids, didn’t respond to a request for comment about the bill. Nor has Gov. Whitmer said anything about the bill or the broader issue.

The unfortunate conclusion is that Michigan isn’t serious about rooting out waste or fraud. The same is largely true for other blue states. California’s erroneous food-stamp spending is higher than Michigan’s; so is New York’s, at more than 14%, and Massachusetts as well. Tamping down such widespread abuse of taxpayer money will take enormous effort and years of work. That work should have begun long ago, and certainly after Trump put states on the financial hook with his reform last year. Alas, as Michigan shows, Democratic states are set to feed taxpayers to the food-stamp wolves.