Police raided businesses in Boston’s Chinatown and in Quincy on Thursday and charged 53 people in connection with alleged scams involving electronic benefit transfer cards, a system meant to help poor people buy food.
Boston police fanned out across Chinatown late Thursday morning and raided five businesses, including a bakery, a sandwich shop, and a seafood market. In Quincy, State and local police arrested the owner of a small corner store who officials said had defrauded the government of more than $700,000.
The banks defrauded people of trillions and no investigations, no raids, no arrests.
The raids followed at least a year of investigation by federal,
state, and local authorities and fueled an ongoing debate around what
critics say are lax rules governing the EBT system.
“What we saw here was abuse of a system intended to protect society’s poorest and most vulnerable,’’ said Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. “This isn’t what the EBT program was intended for. It amounts to theft from the Commonwealth and its residents, and that’s how we’re going to prosecute it.’’
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State Police began investigating the store in September after Quincy police told a trooper that people were receiving cash back with their EBT cards. The cards works like debit cards, are overseen by the state, and allow recipients to get cash assistance. But under the federal program, it is illegal to accept or provide cash instead of food benefits.
After watching the store for several months, authorities noticed that people never left Lotto Luck with groceries, according to a police report filed in Quincy District Court....
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