His appointees are looking at Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from an enforcement perspective, seeing fraud as a major and expensive problem, perpetrated by organized criminal organizations, individual recipients and retailers willing to break the laws for profit. "We know there are instances of fraud committed by our friends and neighbors, but also transnational crime rings," Jennifer Tiller, a senior advisor to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, said in an interview.
TOWSON, MARYLAND - Inside a suburban Maryland gas station, the Secret Service's Vincent Porter runs his fingers over a card reader in front of a clerk, hunting for signs that the terminal has been hijacked by thieves. The financial analyst is feeling for the plastic overlay of a skimmer, an electronic device used to exploit the half-century-old card technology still used to deliver benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps over 41 million Americans pay for food each month.